STOKES SHOWS WHAT ENGLAND HAVE MISSED

SKIPPER STRIKES WITH FIRST BALL BUT INDIA PLOUGH ON

- Malik Ouzia

THEY say that amid darkness, one should always find time to look for the light, and in a brief passage in the Himalayan afternoon, England found small, almost comic, relief from their mauling.

Back bowling for the first time since last summer's Ashes, Ben Stokes, inevitably, took only one ball to strike, castling Rohit Sharma and drawing chuckles of disbelief, mixed with absolute expectation, from those who have seen this sort of nonsense too many times before.

The scene, though, rather summed up the state of England's unravelling in the final throes of this tour: in a place of such deep spirituality, playing cricket in the Dalai Lama's back garden, only the enactment of a fridge magnet slogan could provide any sort of hope.

A 699th Test wicket for James Anderson (right) followed in the very next over, Shubman Gill the man to fall, but by then both he and Rohit had strummed sublime, serene centuries to take India, replying to England's 218, into the lead before lunch on day two.

Afternoon fifties from Sarfaraz Khan and Devdutt Padikkal helped swell the score to 473 for eight by stumps, an advantage already of 255.

The wicket of the free-wheeling Yashasvi Jaiswal offered England's only

breakthrough on the first evening, after the tourists had botched first use of an excellent surface with a quite spectacular collapse.