‘That was really special’

Root’s own mastery of the sweep and reverse has seen him successfully counter spin on sub-continent tracks, but he said Pope’s knock had shifted the standards.

“I’m not any more. I think that’s the benchmark,” Root said.

“I might have scored a few runs in the sub-continent. But not on a surface like that against an attack like that. Honestly, that was really special today and it gives a lot of confidence to the rest of the group as well.”

Root was taken back to some special knocks by Alastair Cook (176 in Ahmedabad) and Kevin Pietersen (186 in Mumbai), both when England last won a Test series in India in 2012.

“They’re all very different. I think you sit here very emotional being part of today and how things have gone. The cramps, soreness, the fatigue, the pressure moments when we lost clusters of wickets, I just think it had everything.”

Vice-captain Pope, 26, is playing his 39th Test since his debut in 2018, having scored more than 2,000 runs with a personal best of 205.

He missed part of the Ashes series at home last year with a dislocated shoulder and Hyderabad is his first Test in more than six months.