England’s best Test win since… when exactly?

From a global perspective, you don’t have to look back far to find a comparable performance. It was only over the weekend that West Indies’ Kyle Mayers, on debut, notched just the second double century in a successful Test chase to knock off nearly 400 against Bangladesh, and that along with India’s storming of the Gabba might push England’s Chennai heroics into bronze position for Test performances in 2021.

But for Joe Root’s team, this was something truly special. You’ll know much of the context, how India had lost just one home Test in eight years coming into this series, a level of dominance up there with anything any side has produced. That victory in Australia meant they came into this encounter riding high, and with four key players missing from that Gabba win – Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma – back in their line-up. Less discussed is how inexperienced this England team is, with seven of their XI having played fewer than 25 Tests and a hole at No.3 having been hastily filled after their prodigy slipped on a marble floor a couple of days out from the game.

And yet from the moment Root won the toss, the Test could hardly have gone better. His own spectacular form continued, and he received stout support from Dom Sibley before slipping into the secondary role himself as Ben Stokes threatened to set the whole place on fire. Then the bowling attack set to work. Jofra Archer showed again that he’s so much more than just pace, with a searing and skilful new-ball spell lopping off both openers, and Dom Bess worked over Kohli in amongst his razing of the middle order.

Root’s decision to hold firm, not enforcing the follow on and holding off on declaring to deny India any hope, was fully vindicated, and Stokes bowling just 10 overs in the Test could be a quietly important factor in this series. In the chase, it was the James Anderson and Jack Leach show, with a succession of beauties leaving India clueless.

England would have gladly accepted any win over India this tour – in truth, they might have begrudgingly taken a 3-0 defeat. But the comprehensive manner of this triumph means they will hold realistic hopes of a seismic series result. And even if India win the next three, England will always have Chennai.

Considering the myriad factors elevating the result, you have to go back some way to find something comparable to this, a victory so complete having gone in as such underdogs. Sri Lanka were so poor in stretches that it’s hard to credit any of those wins in the same way, and as magical as Manchester was, that was a great Test match, rather than a great Test performance.

Cape Town, 2020 is the first true contender, with Root’s captaincy at a low ebb, a bug having ravaged the camp, and England staring at a fourth consecutive series without a win, should South Africa win one more. That was a similarly complete performance, and the Proteas had the grace to make it a thrilling finish too. But those were still conditions more familiar to England, and a less than vintage South Africa team.

Headingley 2019 will hold pride of place for some, but again for the story and for Stokes rather than because England were brilliant throughout – they were of course bowled out 67 in the first innings.

So we go back further, through 2018 and 2017 to the start of 2016, and back to South Africa again, and the first Test in particular. This was closer to the great side we’re familiar with, the No.1 ranked team at the time, and though they were on the way down, they would still knock over Australia in Australia that winter.

England were a green side again, with Ian Bell jettisoned, Nick Compton recalled, Alex Hales debuting and the lower middle order of James Taylor, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali sharing two Test tons between them. It wasn’t as sizeable a win, but it was a complete team performance, with four batsmen making more than 80 runs but Compton’s 134 the biggest tally, and three bowlers taking five or more wickets.

A contender then, but Chennai still edges it, with that unfamiliarity again key, along with the fact that, as good as that South Africa side were, they didn’t dominate at home like this India side have.

So on we go, through a raucous pair of Ashes wins in 2015 at Trent Bridge and Cardiff that were fun but at least partly about Australia’s failings, a classic against New Zealand that was two evenly matched sides trading blows in thrilling fashion, and then into 2012, and back to India last time. Even then though, India were a team past their best, pasted in Australia and England a year previously, and with Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman having called it quits not long before.

England had had their troubles against spin, particularly in the UAE, and had been thumped in the first Test. But that spin attack contained their greatest modern twirler, and Monty Panesar at his peak. The top five contained three proper greats, and a No.3 in Jonathan Trott who, for his all-too-short first stretch as a Test cricketer, was as good as any of them. So we have to discount even Mumbai and Kolkata when looking for a parallel.

Maybe the Ashes 2010/11 is the closest we’ll come, though you might again quibble with the strength of the Australia side. The Boxing Day win is probably the pick of the bunch, with the series at 1-1 and England basically settling it on the first day, though the greatest singular feat in that series was at Brisbane, and the mind-bending total of 517-1.

For my money, you have to go back a full 30 years, all the way past Edgbaston ‘05 and Karachi ‘01 and the wins in the Ashes wilderness, to find a proper analogue, an occasion when England turned over the undisputed world No.1 at something close to their best in unusual conditions in a live Test match.

That was against the West Indies, the first overseas Test shown by Sky. England hadn’t won a game against them in 16 years, and no one had beaten the West Indies at Sabina Park in 35. Viv Richards captained, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes opened, Richie Richardson and Jeff Dujon were kicking about, and the bowling attack was comprised of Malcolm Marshall, Ian Bishop, Patrick Patterson and Courtney Walsh.

England had their own trebuchet in Devon Malcolm, the contrastingly statured seamers of Angus Fraser and Gladstone Small, and David Capel on his way to becoming the first of the ill-fated ‘New Bothams’.

But after Fraser skittled West Indies for 164, Allan Lamb constructed perhaps his best Test innings to give England a big lead, before Malcolm and Small claimed five apiece to leave England with a notional chase. Maybe that just about equals Chennai.