England all out of miracles as India hit back - Chris Waters

Alas, some things are beyond even the powers of Bazball.

Applying a dose of cold reality to the affliction of English optimism, India won by 106 runs soon after tea had been extended on day four with nine wickets down.

Fittingly, Jasprit Bumrah, the player of the match whose six-wicket first innings haul was decisive in the finish, destroying the cream of England’s batting as they gave up a lead of 143 at the halfway stage, rounded things off by uprooting the off stump of the valiant Tom Hartley.

That Hartley’s 36 from the No 9 position was the joint-second highest score of the second innings, despite everyone above him also reaching double figures, told a story in itself as England came up short on 292 all out.

Only Zak Crawley, who followed his first innings 76 with a score of 73, passed fifty in the match for the touring side, whose collection of 20s and 30s (ten in total across the two innings) betrayed a lack of ruthlessness in addition to the excellence of Bumrah in particular.

Contrast that with the one man who showed that ruthlessness in spades in India’s first innings – opener Yashasvi Jaiswal, who made 209 out of 396, a performance that set up the game for Bumrah to win it.

Shubman Gill’s second innings 104, although not quite as impressive as Jaiswal’s contribution, was almost exactly the difference between the teams in terms of the eventual margin of victory; England’s attack - purposeful throughout - is nevertheless greenhorn with the exception of the astonishing James Anderson.

For all the plaudits fired at England both here and during the last couple of years - for their approach, their never-say-die-attitude, their excitement and their spirit - they were (and not for the first time) entertaining losers.

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Some will not look back fondly on their dismissals in the chase - Joe Root skied horribly to backward-point (perhaps hampered by an injured finger) and Ben Stokes was run-out dawdling at the non-striker’s end.

With India badly hit by injuries/unavailability (in effect missing half a first-choice XI and behind in the series), this was a great chance in the round for England to take a decisive grip on the rubber.

As it was, that chance has evaporated and matters could yet go either way.

For India, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul may return for the third Test at Rajkot, starting on February 15, while England head back to Abu Dhabi in the interim for some golf and R&R.

What else, one might ask, but after somehow producing an astonishing back-from-the-dead win in the first Test in Hyderabad, they have some thinking to do in the coming days in those interludes between catching up with family and putting down their clubs.

Both sides will carry frustration into that third game - had Axar Patel not dropped Ollie Pope in the first Test, had Gill not been reprieved by TV review in Visakhapatnam, it could easily have been 2-0 either way.

That it has been a compelling advert for Test cricket cannot be overstated – what, you mean that there are seriously people who would rather watch T20 franchise cricket than this?

Good luck to them, in that case, but they are missing a treat - either at the venues themselves or, in this instance, watching on TV with the sound turned down.

Finally, one has reached the age where one appreciates only too well what Fred Trueman meant when he said that it was the only way he could stomach the coverage. Apparently, they’re covering this one from a TV studio in Sweden, Fred, if you’re somehow reading.

“Er, er, Sweden, you say? Er, ruddy Sweden? Er, I don’t know what’s going off...”

At least Fred would have appreciated Anderson’s work in this game - a lone seamer plying his trade in India at the age of 41, an age when Fred was presenting the Indoor League.

Anderson took 3-47 from 25 overs in the first innings and 2-29 from 10 in the second; he goes into the next match five short of 700 Test wickets, a milestone that would have seemed impossible in Trueman’s time.

Another on the brink of history is Ravichandran Ashwin, left marooned on 499 wickets as Bumrah instead claimed the final English scalp.

It is perhaps easy to forget that Yorkshire signed Ashwin for the 2020 season - if somewhat easier to remember why he never arrived owing to events outside cricket’s control.