HYDERABAD: One of the surest signs of knowing you have witnessed something special on a playground comes from the players themselves. So overcome with emotion, they usually just run wherever their legs take them. No direction. Just sheer elation and joy.
Elation and joy was what plastered on the face of Shamar Joseph, the 24-year-old tearaway who catapulted himself into cricketing folklore after producing a spell for the ages against Australia at The Gabba. The Guyanese pacer, bowling with an injured toe, streaked across the outfield after castling Josh Hazlewood. The last time West Indies had won a Test in Australia, Joseph wasn't even born.
Thousands of miles from Brisbane, Joe Root was performing his own little celebratory run in the Hyderabad outfield. His compatriots all converged on him as the tourists were beginning to sense something special was in the air.
Root had got one to pitch on a length around middle and leg before it straightened, beat KL Rahul's defences before it hit him. Rahul decided to send it upstairs but Root knew it was stone dead. The hosts had lost half their side and still needed 124. On a wicket with lots of variable bounce (most of it tending towards ankle height) and turn, the tourists knew they were onto something special.
As the shadows lengthened and natural light began to dim, a part of India's recent home Test record took another beating. After Tom Hartley picked a seventh wicket of what has been a remarkable debut Test, England won with 28 runs to spare. There is still time for the edifice to gleam; still time to preserve the status quo of not losing a long-format series at home in the last 11 years.
The challenge, though, is to get the players up for the next match with next to no turnaround time. It begins in Visakhapatnam in five days.
Brief scores: West Indies 311 & 193 bt Australia 289/9d & 207 all out in 50.5 ovs (Smith 91 n.o, Joseph 7/68).