Steve Waugh's young guns narrowly failed to give their captain a winning farewell from the international stage when the Prime Minister's XI lost to India by one run at Manuka Oval.

But on a day that was a mixture of tense struggle, picnic and amateur hour, Waugh was partly to blame for the nail-biting defeat.

His seven runs from 22 balls, before being caught near the boundary slog-sweeping, cost his side critical momentum.

Chasing India's 8-254, Western Australian opener Marcus North (74) and local left-hander Kade Brown (80) kept the PM's team in the hunt.

And at the end, aggressive Queensland wicketkeeper Christ Hartley (47 not out) almost got them home.

But needing what everyone thought from the scoreboard was a boundary from the final ball for victory, Hartley could only manage a single.

In fact, though it didn't affect the result, only three was needed -- the last of many foul-ups that included wrong or missing information on the scoreboard.

The 11,000 who crammed the tree-lined oval for the national capital's one day of top flight cricket a year didn't mind, more probably didn't notice.

Even the players' garb reflected the day's ambivalence, the Indians in their one-day blues and John Howard's warriors in traditional white.

The Indians left out most of their top batsmen and gave their lesser lights a run.

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