The Tom Hartley and Ben Foakes 55-run stand for the eighth wicket by two players who raised their reputation in this game showed that if you stayed in and picked off the bad balls, batting was possible on a day-four pitch.
A rebalancing of the attack with two seamers, after James Anderson showed the value of wobble seam skills on Indian pitches, is worth considering because the inability of Stokes to bowl is a big problem. The 41-year-old is reinvigorated but needs some back up.
England have won Tests in the Bazball era playing worse than this. They were on the wrong end of the toss yet still made their highest ever fourth-innings score in India, beating the 241 that had stood since 1964.
The young spinners kept India to slightly below par scores in both innings despite their inexperience and the loss of Root from the attack on day three when it was set up for India to break them.
India were rattled on several occasions and will never feel on top because they are so wary of England’s prowess. England will look at the close lbw call when Shubman Gill was on four as sliding-doors moment and were aggrieved by Crawley’s leg before, which looked very close with half of leg stump visible. India will be thinking that had they not dropped Ollie Pope on 110 in Hyderabad they would be 2-0 up with possibly Virat Kohli and KL Rahul to pick in the third Test.
The belief in both camps is why this is going to be a riveting series. Small individual moments will decide matches, and that is so much better than playing on ragging turners where luck plays a major role.
Apart from the odd shooter that hit a crack, the ball did not turn extravagantly on a black-soil pitch that held together under the sun. Runs were there to be scored with a quick outfield and short boundaries suiting England. Winviz gave India an 89 per cent chance of victory, the data not swayed by Bazball mind games like India (who rated their chances 70:30).
Rehan Ahmed’s nighthawk antics immediately put them on the back foot while Crawley set off well, twice driving Bumrah through the off side for four. Rehan’s jaunty 23 off 31 completed a good Test for him and when the first 10 overs brought 42 for one, England were dreaming.
Rohit backed off with his fields leaving ones and twos to be picked up and the odd bad ball to put away. Pope had seemingly worked through his nervous start when he was caught at slip, an instinctive grab by Rohit, when he tried to cut a ball not short enough for the shot.
