Australia won the big moments and the small ones

If you were looking for a few instances that illustrated the difference between Australia and India in this series, billed as the "battle of champions" by some local television channels, try these couple of moments, both from the sixth match of the series in Nagpur.

The first involved free hits. Brad Haddin looked to swing Murali Kartik down the ground, but the top edge ended up in Sreesanth's hands just outside the circle at mid-off. Haddin, however, managed to scamper two. Later Sourav Ganguly, looking for a free swing over midwicket, top-edged Brett Lee behind the wicketkeeper and Adam Gilchrist collected the ball on the first bounce after making considerable ground. The Indians strolled a single. Palpably the difference here was in the intent.

In the same match, with Australia 109 for 3, Andrew Symonds top-edged Harbhajan Singh, and the ball swirled high over midwicket; Sreesanth, who was back on the ropes, was quick on his feet to make the ground, but his hands let him down and the ball slipped out of his grasp. Symonds, on two, went on to smash 107 off 88 balls. Later, Ganguly floated a tired lofted shot off Brad Hogg in the direction of long-off and Brad Hodge made the distance from the boundary and caught the ball with a slide. India never recovered from losing their set batsman. Give the Australians a chance, and they are most likely to make the most of it.

In his syndicated newspaper column on the morning of the final match, Gilchrist reflected on the closeness of the series despite the 4-1 scoreline. The difference, he wrote, was that Australia had won most of the "50-50 moments". In other words, whenever the match had been in the balance, Australia found the men and means to swing it their way.

All that separated the teams in Nagpur, possibly the best match of the series, was a couple of loose overs at the start of Australia's innings and a few tight ones in the latter half of the Indian innings. The margin was 18 runs - not insignificant in the context of one-day cricket - which boiled down to a few extra singles, some singles converted into twos, and a few runs saved in the field.

In the end, a 4-2 result looks far better than 5-1, which it could have easily been. But India will reflect and rue that it could very well have been 3-3. It will be difficult to argue, however, that Australia weren't decidedly the better side.