"UPDATE x SET y = y + 1" taking very long?

Hi,
we have performance issue that I do not understand. For some reason query

UPDATE query_cache SET hit = hit + 1 WHERE match_id = 1

takes very long (could be seconds) on even modest size database, and creating index for match_id does not seem to matter match. Shouldn’t that be much faster? Or is there more efficient way to do “hit = hit + 1” ?

Here is the database structure and other info:

Table comments: InnoDB free: 124928 kB

Field Type Null Default
query_id bigint(20) No
firstword_id bigint(20) No
query varchar(255) No
time int(11) No 0
numres int(11) No 0
hit int(11) No 0
match_id bigint(50) No 0
query_review tinyint(4) No 0
scheduled int(11) No 0
timestamp timestamp Yes CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

Indexes:
Keyname Type Cardinality Field
PRIMARY PRIMARY 48004 query_id
firstword_id INDEX 48004 firstword_id
query
hit
query_review
query INDEX 48004 query

Space usage:
Type Usage
Data 5,648 KB
Index 10,304 KB
Total 15,952 KB

 	 Row Statistics:

Statements Value
Format Compact
Rows 45,716
Row length ø 126
Row size ø 357 Bytes
Next Autoindex 59,451
Creation Feb 16, 2007 at 10:08 AM

[B]Quote:[/B]
Shouldn't that be much faster?
It should. I guess there's something very wrong with your setup. Could you show explain for corresponding select? Also, what's cardinality of match_id index?