Great chance for Ben Stokes’s England to build on incredible turnaround - Chris Waters

Even now there are those who would say that the back-from-the-dead win in the opening game in Hyderabad - where England overturned a 190-run first innings deficit to inflict on India only their fourth home Test defeat since 2013 - has succeeded only in averting the threat of a whitewash.

By the standards of pessimism favoured in this quarter, that is a magnificently depressing and gloom-ridden stance, but the reality is that England will never have a better opportunity to capitalise on a remarkable turnaround against opponents who suddenly seem more vulnerable than a rabbit when faced with the headlights of an onrushing car.

It is difficult, in fact, to think of a greater quantum shift in mood and expectation than the one generated by Ben Stokes and his team in recent days.

Those of us fully expecting to be writing England’s obituary in terms of this series have had to concede that, much like reports of Mark Twain’s death, those concerning England’s demise have perhaps been exaggerated.

Of course, given the harum-scarum nature of Bazball (although there is a control and method to its glorious kind of madness), the pendulum could just as easily swing in the opposite direction, knocking pundits on the other side of the head as well for good measure.

But the England side for Friday’s second Test in Visakhapatnam must now believe, if it did not already, that India are susceptible and that their hegemony on home turf (16 consecutive Test series wins since 2012) cannot endure forever.

Although England have injuries/unavailability with which to contend (Jack Leach is out with a knee problem and Stokes is not yet fit to bowl due to his own knee troubles, although he has returned to light bowling in training, with Harry Brook absent through personal reasons), India are effectively without half of a first-choice side.

Already sans Virat Kohli due to personal reasons, they have lost KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja to injury after Hyderabad and are also missing the injured Rishabh Pant, the dynamic batsman/wicketkeeper, and Mohammed Shami, the veteran fast bowler.

Kohli’s insatiable appetite for runs might have been handy when India were failing to grind England’s noses into the dirt in Hyderabad during a first innings that left a few runs unscored.

As it is, a top-order containing the enigmatic Shubman Gill (Test average 29, one-day international average 61), Shreyas Iyer (who has reached 30 only twice in his last 11 Test innings) and debutant Rajat Patidar is unlikely to concern England to the point of trepidation. Good players though Gill, Iyer and Patidar assuredly are, Sehwag, Pujara and Tendulkar they ain’t.

India’s bowling was unnerved in the first Test, where England’s reverse sweeps and scoops left them all aquiver, not least when Ollie Pope was playing the innings of his young life so far.

India’s fielding was also poor - the gauge, so they say, of where a side is at mentally. One example, when Ravichandran Ashwin and Patidar (operating as a substitute) left the ball to each other as it trickled apologetically over the boundary, sticks in the mind - a moment so hapless that even the producers of Keystone Cops might have deemed it too implausible for public consumption.

Kohli is expected to return for the third Test, so it goes without saying that this is a big match for England.

If they could carve out a 2-0 lead it would need a remarkable comeback to deny them Bazball’s greatest triumph; at the same time, England’s supporters will be mindful of the fact that it did need Pope’s wonderful innings to, firstly, get them back into the first Test before going on to win it, superbly helped by debutant Tom Hartley’s seven-wicket haul that was such a character-filled comeback after a difficult start.

That some, including this correspondent, remain worried about the balance of the England side is perhaps understandable, notwithstanding Stokes’s propensity for making fools of us all.

For the second week running, England have opted to go into a Test with only one seamer - not a bad one, as it happens, the 690-wicket James Anderson, in place of Mark Wood, along with three frontline spinners who have all of three Test caps between them.

Two of those belong to Rehan Ahmed, 19; the other to Hartley, 24, with Shoaib Bashir, 20, coming in for debut.

After arriving in India a week late due to complications with his visa, believed to stem from the fact he has Pakistani heritage, Bashir can finally start to live the dream.