London, Sep. 10 : England sneaked out a three-wicket victory over World Cup champions India at The Oval on Friday in a rain-reduced third one-day international.

Chasing 218 from 43 overs under the Duckworth/Lewis system after an hour''s rain break in the day-night match, England survived a wobble in mid-innings to get over the line with seven balls to spare.

Addressing the post match news conference, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed his bowlers for slackening and giving away too many runs in the first ten over of the game.

"I think, the first 10 overs, we are giving too many runs and it is becoming a little bit difficult after that. You know, to really put pressure on the batsmen in the sense, if you have more than six runs an over to chase for the last few overs, then it becomes a bit tough for the opposition to score runs, and then, you can manoeuvre around, but more often than not we have not really done that," said Dhoni.

Alastair Cook asked India to bat after winning the toss and won an immediate reward when Ajinkya Rahane, who had scored 155 from 120 balls in his three previous one-day internationals, was dismissed without scoring, caught behind prodding at James Anderson''s fourth delivery of the day.

India, who lost their place at the top of the world rankings during a 4-0 whitewash in the Test series, rallied from 58 for five to reach 234 for seven from their 50 overs.

All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, an injury replacement for Gautam Gambhir, stroked the ball beautifully to score 78 from 89 deliveries. He added 112 with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (69) and 59 from 31 balls with Ravichandran Ashwin (36 not out).

Dhoni praised man-of-match Jadeja for having shown a marked improvement in his game.

He also mentioned that the team could now boast of five bowlers.

"The biggest positive is, you know, it looks as if we have got the five bowlers in the bowling department where we have been struggling for the fifth bowler because somebody or someone will have an off day in a particular game, and someone will go for runs. And, in that case, if you have five specialist bowlers, you know, it makes life slightly easy because whatever those extra number of overs are supposed to be bowled, you can bring in the part timer and you can fill in those quota of overs. And of course seeing Jadeja score runs, it is really nice over here. So overall you know these are a few positives that we should look at from this game," said Dhoni.

England began brightly with Kieswetter lofting Praveen Kumar for six over the mid-wicket boundary, sweeping a second to fine leg from the same bowler and driving a third off Munaf Patel over long-off.

He lost Cook lbw to Patel for 23 off the last ball of the compulsory powerplay, after the pair had put on 63 off 62 balls for the first wicket, and survived a straightforward caught-and-bowled chance to Patel on 41.

Kieswetter went to 51 when he was comprehensively bowled middle stump by slow left-armer Jadeja.

Jonathan Trott (11) followed five balls later, bowled by off-spinner Ashwin by a delivery which slid past the outside of his bat.

Rain began to fall and the players left the field with England 95 for three, sufficient for victory under the Duckworth/Lewis method for deciding rained-out matches.

India were back in the game but Bopara (40) and Tim Bresnan (28) took advantage of the slippery ball and wet outfield to add 60 for the seventh wicket and set up an ultimately comfortable victory.

England lead 2-0 in the five-match series after the first game was rained out.

The teams meet again at the Lords on September 11 and in Cardiff on September 16. (ANI)