When it comes to picking England’s finest Test achievement abroad this century, the initial pull is towards an Australian outlier. Sandwiched in between two ugly whitewashes, a 3-1 away victory 13 years ago remains staggering, each win completed by an innings. Even if the opposition weren’t at their best these were names to put some respect on: Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson. Outside that tour, England’s record in Australia this century is 22 losses, two draws and one win, making those few weeks all the more extraordinary.
But even with the vast outfields that swallow you whole, all-timers in their attack and the presence of Steve Smith, Australia haven’t been unconquerable in recent years. England’s victory was followed by two series wins for South Africa, and India have had a couple of their own.
It is India, largely powered by the axis of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, where visiting sides have barely come close in the last decade. The hosts have won 14 consecutive series (excluding two one-off Tests – which they also won) across the past 11 years. Go back a bit and in the 21st century just three touring Test sides have come away victorious: South Africa in 2000, Australia four years later, and, most recently, a side led by Alastair Cook in late 2012. That triumph, inspired largely by the England captain’s runs, eclipses one wonderful Ashes winter.
Things didn’t look all that great heading in, a wave of spin-inflicted defeats in Asia kicking off the year. In the United Arab Emirates, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman twirled Pakistan to a 3-0 win. In Sri Lanka, Rangana Herath’s left-armers took 19 wickets in two Tests, and a sparkling Kevin Pietersen hundred was required to draw the series.
A summer soap followed. Pietersen wasn’t happy, ticked off by a parody Twitter account he believed teammates were involved with, but found brief respite in a tub-thumping 149 at Headingley against South Africa. Then came “textgate”, his removal from the side for Lord’s, a series defeat and the loss of the No 1 ranking earned the previous year. “Losing was one thing,” Jonathan Trott wrote in his autobiography. “The real issue was the disintegration of our carefully cultivated team spirit as the summer wore on.”
Pietersen wasn’t cast aside for long, though he couldn’t offer much in the first Test at Ahmedabad in mid-November, undone twice by the left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha. Others floundered too as England were bowled out for 191 in response to India’s 521 for eight. “England groped around against spin like blind men reaching for a bench that wasn’t there,” wrote George Dobell for Cricinfo.
An Indian side in transition was still top tier. Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag – who hit a run-a-ball 117 in the first innings – were coming to the end. Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara – who compiled an unbeaten double century – were entering the picture. Ashwin, playing just his ninth Test, became the fastest Indian to 50 Test wickets.
“Judge us in three Tests’ time,” said the England coach, Andy Flower, after a nine-wicket defeat, buoyed up by his side’s efforts in the second innings after following on. Cook, in his first Test as full-time captain, hit 176; Nick Compton, on debut, kept him company for 45 overs and Matt Prior finished on 91. Pietersen had gone to the nets straight after his second-innings dismissal, sorting out his footwork to make sure that, by the second Test, “the bat felt like an extension of my body,”, as he wrote in his autobiography.
The first act in Mumbai belonged to Monty Panesar; England had erred in leaving him out in the opener and he responded with 11 wickets, Graeme Swann with eight, a partnership first seen at Wantage Road working at the Wankhede. The cherry was the left-armer’s delivery to Tendulkar on the opening day. Turn and bounce were available but Panesar’s strength was the pace he could add to the concoction: a 59.3mph curver towards the leg-side with enough spin to knock over the off-stump of the city’s most cherished son.
England’s first innings brought together Cook’s cold-bloodedness with Pietersen’s just-watch-me flamboyance, their partnership worth 206 and the latter’s 186 quickly inked in as an epic, a collection of dinky sweeps and lofted drives. Pietersen compared the standing ovation he received from the home crowd to “getting flowers thrown at you for singing opera at La Scala in Milan. It doesn’t happen much for blokes from Pietermaritzburg.”
A 10-wicket win was followed with a victory by seven wickets at Eden Gardens, Cook going gargantuan again with 190. This time it was a seamer at the front, taking six wickets, but it was Jimmy Anderson’s method that had Mike Selvey raving: “When the ball reverses, there is no one in the world, with the exception of Zaheer Khan (who may yet prove a thorn in England flesh) who can equal him.” More than a decade on, Anderson will be asked to make the old ball dance again.
The fourth and final Test was a nod to the future, with a 21-year-old debutant chewing up 229 balls for 73 to pave the way for a series-sealing draw. “I always say never judge anyone after a couple of hours batting for England, but he showed signs that he will have a very good Test career,” said Pietersen about Joe Root at the end of day one. India would introduce their own kid, a 24-year-old with three first-class triple hundreds to his name already. Jadeja’s left-arm spin would prove more valuable than his batting in the years to come.
For Root and Jadeja, the beginning; for that England side, a last win on their travels before an Ashes implosion a year later led to a bitter breakup. Time has only elevated their Indian achievement.
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