India v England, 2012-13

At Ahmedabad, November 15-19, 2012. India won by nine wickets. Toss: India. Test debut: N. R. D. Compton.

Anything feels possible on the first morning of a Test. Start well, and the game can unroll like a red carpet at a VIP function. Start badly, and you won't get past the bouncer on the door. At the Sardar Patel Stadium, India had a blast, while England's name was not even on the guest list. India's nine-wicket win did not flatter them, and left England pondering whether their repeated claims to have improved in Asian conditions now bordered on the delusional.

Cook, in his first Test as permanent captain, was immense - but only after his team had followed on, 330 behind, and India had found a player apparently capable of matching the sangfroid of the retired Rahul Dravid at No. 3. While Pujara was busy scoring 247 runs without being dismissed - 41 of them as opener in the second innings after Gambhir had returned home to Delhi following the death of his grandmother - the debate about a fading batting line-up seemed totally irrelevant.

Not for the first time in 2012, England's batsmen were flummoxed by quality spin, the absence of which from their three warm-up games had lent those matches an unreal air. To make matters worse, they picked the wrong side, omitting Monty Panesar and opting instead for a three-pronged seam attack that was badly shown up by the home pair of Yadav and Zaheer Khan. Swann admitted the pitch had been even slower and lower than England had feared, though he fought hard, taking six of the nine Indian wickets to fall and moving past Jim Laker (193) as the most prolific English Test offspinner of all time. But 13 in the match for Ashwin and Ojha, India's slow bowlers, told its own tale.

From the moment Cook lost the toss, England were up against it. More specifically on the opening day, they were up against Sehwag, who hurried India to 120 without loss at lunch and, by the 40th over, had completed his 23rd Test century - though only his second against England - from just 90 balls. It had been two years since his previous hundred, but this was worth the wait, full of languid square-drives and matter-of-fact lofts down the ground. When Sehwag was second out for a run-a-ball 117, missing a mow at Swann, India already had 224, and England - who had been slow to respond to his steers to the unguarded third-man region - were lamenting the absence of Steven Finn, who had failed to recover from a thigh injury. Yet their attack of Anderson, Broad, Bresnan and Swann had been at the heart of the 4-0 win over these opponents in 2011. That, though, had been at home. This was Ahmedabad, the city where Gandhi had begun his salt march, and England - as if in homage - were looking distinctly non-aggressive.

Tendulkar came and went quickly, carelessly swatting Swann to deep midwicket, where Patel seemed to be waiting for the miscue, but that merely focused the attention on Pujara, who responded with the kind of remorseless concentration that had once brought him three triple-centuries in all cricket in the space of a month. Fortunate to get away with a leading edge on eight off Bresnan as Anderson misjudged the flight at mid-on, Pujara - from nearby Rajkot - gave his fellow Gujaratis plenty to cheer with an unbeaten double-hundred of stylistic and technical brilliance. In all, he thwarted England for a shade over eight and a half hours, and allowed Yuvraj Singh - returning to Test cricket for the first time in a year, after a battle with cancer - the freedom to settle in. They added 130 for India's fifth wicket.

England's reply to 521 for eight began badly. The debutant Nick Compton crawled to nine before he was gated by a delicious offbreak from Ashwin, who thus reached 50 Test wickets in his ninth match, quicker than any other Indian (Anil Kumble got there in ten). With 20 minutes of the second evening still to play, Anderson emerged as nightwatchman, but fell almost immediately to Ojha. And when Ashwin removed Trott, caught at short leg, the crumble was on.

It continued next morning. In his first international match since reintegration, Pietersen got into a tangle against Ojha, bowled middle stump as his bat came across the line of the ball in a shot that had become known as the curtain-rail, before Bell fecklessly chipped his first delivery to deepish mid-off. Experienced observers wondered whether it was the worst stroke they had seen from an established Test batsman. Cook edged a drive off Ashwin to slip and, from 97 for seven, only Prior's 48 helped England to as many as 191. Ojha's five-for was the seventh by a spinner against England in 2012, and his control of flight and direction a joy to behold.

Shortly before 2pm on the third day, England were asked to bat again. Things could hardly get worse; in fact, they got rather better. As one of only two batsmen in his side - along with Pietersen - to have scored a Test century in India, Cook took it upon himself to show that playing spin need not necessarily be torture for an Englishman. Compton tucked into his captain's slipstream, and their stand of 123 was not broken until the fourth morning. The demise of Compton, hit in line with leg stump by Zaheer, proved India had more than just slow bowling up their sleeve. And though Trott and the frenetic Pietersen - bowled behind his legs on the sweep as he moved too far across - both fell cheaply to Ojha, the next two blows were struck by Yadav. Almost ignored in the first innings, he now trapped Bell and Patel with successive deliveries to reduce England to 199 for five, still 131 behind. If Patel was unfortunate after appearing to edge the ball, then Yadav's modus operandi was a lesson for England, whose seamers failed to find the same degree of reverse swing. While their trio of quicks would finish the match with combined figures of 72-10-255-1, India's duo managed 72.3-16-166-7 - and they were faster, too.

Once more, England rallied. Cook, grateful for the absence of the DRS when he missed a sweep off Ojha on 41, was at his obdurate best, and Prior a willing ally. At stumps on the fourth day England led by ten, with five wickets in hand and thoughts turning to Johannesburg 1995-96, when Mike Atherton and Jack Russell - another captain/keeper combination - had pulled off their great escape. But Prior chipped a return catch to Ojha in the tenth over of the final morning to fall for 91 - among England wicketkeepers, only Warwickshire's Dick Spooner, with 92 at Calcutta in 1951-52, had scored more in a Test in India - and end a partnership of 157 in more than 60 overs. Soon Cook was gone too, bowled by one from Ojha that spun back and kept slightly low. Another eight minutes and he would have outlasted Graeme Fowler's epic of nine hours 23 minutes at Madras in 1984-85 - still the longest innings played for England in India. The rest followed quickly, leaving Ojha with Test-best match figures of nine for 165.

Dhoni immediately called for the pitch at Mumbai, venue for the Second Test, to spin from the first ball. India were already preparing for the kill. But it was a conviction based on England's first innings rather than their second. And Cook was evidently not in the mood for his side to make the same mistake twice.

Man of the Match: C. A. Pujara.

Close of play: first day, India 323-4 (Pujara 98, Yuvraj Singh 24); second day, England 41-3 (Cook 22, Pietersen 6); third day, England 111-0 (Cook 74, Compton 34); fourth day, England 340-5 (Cook 168, Prior 84).