As unsatisfactory an end as this was to the Champions Trophy — and the weather made it a truly desultory day — few could argue that the best team did not end up walking away with the spoils. Unbeaten throughout, India remained so in a performance of great heart and spirit and, spinners to the fore, no little skill.

Quite what happened to home advantage will be a question Ashley Giles will ponder long and hard. There is a certain anguished irony in the question, for Giles is a Warwickshire man and the groundsman did him no favours in preparing a pitch that spun more than any other in the tournament. Still, England will feel that this is a match that they could have and possibly should have won. When Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara combined in a partnership worth 64, before both fell to Ishant Sharma with just 19 needed for victory, the match was theirs to lose. A combination of panic and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s great faith in spin, two overs of which were held back for the end, saw the match tilt India’s way.

With the vast majority of supporters shouting for India, and close catchers crowding the bat for the spinners during much of the second innings, we could have been on the subcontinent — apart from the wind and the rain of course. Ravichandran Ashwin, the off-spinner, Ravindra Jadeja, the left-armer who completed an outstanding match and an outstanding tournament, and Suresh Raina, the part-time off-spinner, could not have asked for better conditions in which to bowl.

Few teams could have transformed themselves as India have done before this tournament. From the World Cup-winning team in 2011 they have lost over a thousand one-day International caps, including stalwarts such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir.

Sri Lanka will have the same questions asked of them when Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena retire and they will do well to progress as seamlessly as India. There are great hordes of talented young cricketers in India, many of who are getting exposure in the IPL, the experience of which no doubt helped during the frenetic last overs.

But with the passing of the old-timers has come opportunity. Opportunity for Duncan Fletcher to mould cricketers in his image; opportunity for Dhoni to captain a team of dynamic fielders and opportunity for cricket to show again that new blood is essential for maintaining fans’ interest.

Players such as Shikhar Dhawan, who lit up the tournament but was undone in the final by a Bopara slower ball; players such as Jadeja, man of the match for his unbeaten 33 and his two wickets.

For Dhoni, this was another remarkable night for a remarkable cricketer. There have been times when he has looked an unengaged captain of a lacklustre team. When England whitewashed them at home and beat them away there was a bad smell around Dhoni’s team. But reinvigorated again, he has now led India to the world Twenty20, the World Cup and now the Champions Trophy. The Champions Trophy in the hands of a champion cricketer.