India v England, 2014

	England celebrate their 3-1 victory over India in the Test series © PA Photos Enlarge
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Test matches (5): England 3, India 1
One-day internationals (5): England 1, India 3
Twenty20 international (1): England 1, India 0

The forecasts proved correct. England won the Test series, confirming India's dislike of foreign assignments. And India won the one-day internationals, indicating where their priority lay - and probably England's, too. The solitary Twenty20 match, shorn of any context, went narrowly in England's favour. Yet the predictability of the results did not even begin to reveal the sporting and human dramas which accompanied them.

In their first five-Test series at home outside the Ashes since 2003, England came from behind to retain the Pataudi Trophy, following defeat at Lord's. There had been several moments in the months before when they had seemed at rock bottom, but that reversal - leaving them without a victory in ten Tests - suggested depths still unexcavated. Most of Alastair Cook's surviving predecessors - and perhaps some of those looking down from above as well - had by now joined the throng advocating his removal. Rarely, if ever, can an England captain have been subject to such relentless and derisive scrutiny. It was to his considerable credit that he emerged with a 3-1 Test series victory, and both job and dignity intact. Not since Don Bradman's Australians in the 1936-37 Ashes had a team come from behind to win the last three Tests of a five-match series.

The result at Lord's had been India's first Test win away from home in three years and 16 attempts, but they declined so rapidly and inexorably that, before the limited-overs matches, the BCCI installed Ravi Shastri, the commentator and former captain, as team director. The sight of Shastri in jeans and loafers at training sessions was distinctly odd, but whatever he said did no harm: India immediately won three one-day games in a row.

Honour was just about satisfied on both sides. England salvaged their summer and rescued their captain. And, while India might have professed disappointment at the outcome of the Tests, they drew solace from their oneday triumph. It was a reminder that different things matter in different countries. The transformation in Test fortunes had been interlaced with a rancorous dispute which began during the series opener at Trent Bridge, and refused to ebb. A row between Jimmy Anderson and Ravindra Jadeja started on the field and continued in the Nottinghamshire pavilion. India believed Anderson had shoved their man, and laid a Level Three charge against him under the ICC Code of Conduct. England, who denied any wrongdoing by Anderson even before the charge had been made public, hit back with a lesser, Level Two, charge against Jadeja. Match referee David Boon later found Jadeja guilty of a Level One breach, a decision M. S. Dhoni, the Indian captain, called "hurtful".

Had there not been the serious prospect of Anderson being banned for four Tests, it would have been easy to dismiss it all as sportsmen's handbags at ten paces. England were perplexed by India's attitude; India insisted on pursuing the case, and Dhoni was particularly voluble. Adopting a solemn posture whenever he was asked about the confrontation, Dhoni clambered on to the moral high ground amid declarations about knowing the difference between right and wrong. Eminent lawyers were hired to put both sides' cases in a video conference call to the ICC's judicial commissioner, Justice Gordon Lewis, in Australia. Following a six-hour hearing after the Third Test in Southampton, where England had levelled the series and altered the course of their season, Justice Lewis cleared both players of all charges. He was unhappy about much of the evidence, suggesting both sides were biased.

Ultimately nobody was much the wiser about who said or did what to whom on the narrow staircase leading to the Trent Bridge dressing-rooms. By the end, few cared. The game itself had been one of the dullest imaginable. Steve Birks, Nottinghamshire's accomplished groundsman, erred in providing a flat, slow surface on which it was difficult to bat fluently and heartbreaking to bowl. As if to prove the point, the Test was marked by a pair of improbable tenth-wicket partnerships: Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami put on 111, which was then trumped by Joe Root and Anderson, who added a record 198. Birks gallantly admitted his mistake.

Both teams were glad to escape Nottingham, where there had been no grass on the pitch. They arrived at Lord's to find a surface tantamount to a meadow. If anybody there had seen the like of it, they were having trouble remembering. Yet England wasted conditions that should have played into their hands. On the first day the bowlers were negligent in their lengths, and on the last the batsmen were equally incompetent, walking into a trap laid boldly but blatantly by Dhoni and implemented by an initially reluctant Ishant Sharma, who attacked them with short-pitched bowling. India's 95-run win turned up the volume of criticism for England and Cook's leadership. With so many inexperienced players in a reshaped batting order, a run of indifferent results might have been forgivable - but Cook was the greater cause for concern (and the ECB were coming under increasing stick for the sacking of Kevin Pietersen). His scores in the first two Tests were five, ten and 22, and his qualities as leader and tactician were roundly traduced. His bosses were not inclined to bring his tenure to an end, but it was obvious this could not go on much longer.

The circus moved to Hampshire's Rose Bowl. And it was here that Cook's fortunes turned. He was on 15 when India's giant debutant seamer Pankaj Singh started his third over. The first ball, from round the wicket, lifted on Cook, who edged it towards the slip cordon at knee height. There, Jadeja - it had to be Jadeja - moved to his left and dropped the catch. What might have happened had it been taken is pure conjecture, but Cook's position would have been more parlous, and England might not have been able to construct a formidable 569 for seven. Cook's eventual 95 still left him without a long overdue hundred. But, allied to an overwhelming England victory, in which he also contributed an undefeated 70, it lent him time. He had clearly amended his method, and it was possible to feel the determination in his realigned forward defensive. The length of the stride might have made Usain Bolt envious.

The reception accorded to Cook was both instructive and touching. At lunch on the first day, when he was on 48, the crowd gave him a standing ovation,followed by another on his dismissal. It suggested the outpourings on social media did not necessarily reflect the feelings of the public at large. Such unmistakable warmth must have boosted the confidence even of this obstinate chap. Cook revealed a few weeks later that his lowest moment of the summer had come on the fourth evening of the Second Test against Sri Lanka at Headingley: he said it had taken his wife, Alice, to persuade him to remain as captain.

India's every innings now became a procession. The pitches changed in complexion, and the exonerated Anderson was revitalised, finishing with 25 wickets - a personal best in any Test series - at an average of 20, and producing performances that had been beyond him for more than a year. Apparently content to let the ball do the talking, he reduced his verbal tirades in the final two Tests. India had let it be known they were tired of his sledging; it was certainly true he had seemed to be in a constant state of rage.

Increasingly, the result at Lord's felt like an aberration. Ishant Sharma's absence in the Third and Fourth Tests might have affected India after his intervention in the Second, but that hardly excused their feeble batting. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, who had been expected to head up a glorious new middle order, were brutally exposed by the moving, lifting ball, and kept finding new ways of edging behind. The contagion spread so that Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane, who each made an early hundred, looked equally vulnerable. Only Vijay averaged more than 35 among India's specialist batsmen. Their bowlers faded too, unravelling in the face of India's first five match series for 12 years. It was not that they lacked the stomach for the fight, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar was at his willowy best in the first two Tests. They just seemed ill-equipped to compete, and a cramped 42-day schedule drained them of resolve.

Rising above it all, despite an unenviable Test record as captain overseas, was Dhoni. The Lord's victory was only his sixth away from home, and he ended up with a fifth consecutive series loss abroad. But he scored four fifties, without any discernible method of dealing with swing bowling on helpful pitches, and his position seemed as secure as ever - despite his immobility behind the stumps, which spilled over into uncertainty in the slip cordon. Dhoni appeared to be able to say what he wished, and often did so, sticking firmly to his refusal to support the DRS in the face of almost daily evidence that mistakes would have been rectified.

India's selections did them few favours, and the omission until the Fourth Test of Ravichandran Ashwin was inexplicable. The purported reason was his moderate record abroad, but that hardly made him a member of an exclusive club. When he finally got a game, he immediately looked like not only India's best spinner but their best all-rounder, too.

As for England, they were no doubt as relieved as they were elated. After the travails of the winter and the early summer, this was just what they needed. Attendances outside London were far from capacity and, while there might have been myriad reasons - some connected to the viability of Test cricket - one of the main factors was that the public want to watch teams who set out to win. The selectors were largely vindicated. They stuck by their support bowlers, and must have been especially heartened by their decision to promote Chris Woakes, even if his figures were unflattering. Chris Jordan was fitful, while Ben Stokes fell away after his promising start in Australia.

	James Anderson was the Man of the Series for his impressive display in the Tests © PA Photos Enlarge

Two of the young batsmen prospered mightily. Root, measured and confident, scored two centuries and three fifties, and averaged over 100. Gary Ballance at No. 3 was an undisputed success. What had seemed a policy fraught with risk - he had never batted as high in the Championship - proved a masterstroke by Peter Moores, the returning coach. Ballance looked reassuringly in control, and possessed a striking ability to move through the gears. None of this applied to Cook's opening partner, Sam Robson, who struggled more as the series progressed.

The other fresh face in the batting order was Moeen Ali. But it was his offspin which made the headlines. Deemed little more than a part-timer after taking three wickets at 60 each against Sri Lanka, Ali learned quickly, and a word from Ian Bell in the nets before the Third Test had a startling effect. Bell insisted he bowl more quickly, to a tighter line, and in successive innings in Southampton and Manchester he did just that, collecting ten for 106. He finished the series with 19 at 23; among England spinners, only Ray Illingworth, with 20 at 13 in 1967, had claimed more in a home series against India. Ali's batting, though elegant, was less proficient - a little too casual, and susceptible to the short ball.

Ali was prominent for other reasons. He was impressive in his willingness to engage in discussion about his Muslim faith, though that created a minor controversy when he took to the field in Southampton sporting wristbands bearing the messages "Save Gaza" and "Free Palestine". Whether or not the Test arena was the appropriate forum to be expressing such sentiments - and ICC regulations made clear it was not - Ali at least showed he had horizons beyond cricket. The ECB supported him (while politely suggesting he observe the rules in future), but were less forthcoming a few weeks later during the one-day series, when Ali was booed by India fans. His treatment, most obvious at Edgbaston, posed questions about the state of a multicultural, multi-faith society, but there were many who thought the ECB and the Professional Cricketers' Association ought to have been more critical of the supporters.

Nobody was objecting to English-born fans of Indian heritage barracking for India, but it was an unsavoury and unacceptable step to deride Ali because of his Pakistani ancestry. Ali conducted himself with admirable probity. England ran out of puff and enterprise in the one-day series. India were re-energised, whether or not by Shastri, who after the tour gave his support to Duncan Fletcher, the head coach. At one point, Fletcher had seemed as beleaguered as Cook. Given what had gone before, it was almost inevitable that Cook's position, this time as one day captain, should again be examined.

He was once more short of runs, and England were short of wins. But, as before, the selectors were not for turning. Cook was disarmingly dignified throughout it all. Having resisted any opportunity to gloat after the Test comeback, he stuck to his line: he wanted to stay as captain, but only as long as the selectors agreed. Cook and Moores seemed to have struck up an alliance based on mutual trust, respect and understanding. It was probably a relationship Moores needed after his previous stint in the job, and it was important for Cook, too, to know he was wanted. They finished as a work in progress. That that there was progress at all was reason enough for English satisfaction.

Match reports for

Tour Match: Leicestershire v Indians at Leicester, Jun 26-28, 2014
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Tour Match: Derbyshire v Indians at Derby, Jul 1-3, 2014
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1st Investec Test: England v India at Nottingham, Jul 9-13, 2014
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2nd Investec Test: England v India at Lord's, Jul 17-21, 2014
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3rd Investec Test: England v India at Southampton, Jul 27-31, 2014
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4th Investec Test: England v India at Manchester, Aug 7-9, 2014
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5th Investec Test: England v India at The Oval, Aug 15-17, 2014
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Tour Match: Middlesex v Indians at Lord's, Aug 22, 2014
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1st ODI: England v India at Bristol, Aug 25, 2014
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2nd ODI: England v India at Cardiff, Aug 27, 2014
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3rd ODI: England v India at Nottingham, Aug 30, 2014
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4th ODI: England v India at Birmingham, Sep 2, 2014
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5th ODI: England v India at Leeds, Sep 5, 2014
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Only T20I: England v India at Birmingham, Sep 7, 2014
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