India v/s England: Truth comes home - England show they are in for a fight

The first Test generally sets up the tempo for the rest of the series. England defied this thinking when they last toured India in 2012-13 coming back from a 0-1 deficit to win the four-Test series 2-1. India stopped Australia's winning streak by bouncing back from being 0-1 down to winning 2-1 in that unforgettable series of 2000-01 famous for VVS Laxman's 281 in the second Test in Kolkata.

The current series between Virat Kohli's India and Alastair Cook's England is 0-0 with four more Tests to play, the second starting in Visakhapatnam from November 17. Though the first Test in Rajkot was a drawn affair, England have taken the advantage and look positive going into the second.

India let go of the initiative early on when they dropped chances on the first day after losing the toss on a flat track. The Englishmen made the most of both India's largesse on the field and the flat track that they had four centurions in the match.

"The hundreds we set up, obviously it was a good toss to win, but the way we played to get 537 showed the character on a different wicket," Cook, who scored 130 on the fifth day of the Test, said after the drawn encounter on Sunday.

That Virat Kohli dug deep to save India from an embarrassing defeat spoke volumes of the character that the young Indian team is made up of. All along used to winning in four days, if not early on the fifth day in the last two years, Kohli and Co. showed that they could survive to salvage a draw and not surrender meekly. It was a lesson learnt by the Indians that will hold them in good stead in the coming matches.

Kohli has not tasted success as a captain batting fourth. The Rajkot draw was only his sixth draw – three of which were interrupted by rain – in 18 Tests as captain. When faced with an asking rate of 6.33, Kohli's and chief coach Anil Kumble's aggressive nature may have tempted him to go for the target. But the situation that India were in, all the talk of playing positive cricket and going for a win had to be kept aside. The need of the hour was to dig themselves deep and not lose the Test and hand over the advantage to the visitors.

This was not the first time in recent months that India have batted fourth to draw a Test. It may have been the first time in India, though. But memories of the Melbourne and Sydney Tests in MS Dhoni's last Test and Kohli's second Test as skipper in 2014-15, respectively, have not faded when they played out a draw after faced with targets of 384 and 349.

Things will not be easy, though, for India. They cannot expect to steamroll the Englishmen like they did New Zealand or South Africa or the West Indies in the recent past. India's spinners will have to be on top of their games and also expect the pitches to assist them if they are to spin a web around the England batsmen.

The batsmanship displayed by Cook and Co. certainly took India unawares. While Cook and Joe Root are their best players of spin, they have unearthed an exciting, talented young opener in Haseeb Hameed who looked equally at ease against the new ball and the spin just like his senior team-mates. And, the aggressive nature of Ben Stokes and the calmness of Moeen Ali are what the Englishmen bank upon to put the runs on the board.

As was seen in Rajkot, their spinners were better than the hosts' trio of Ashwin, Jadeja and Amit Mishra. Kohli may have felt offended when he was asked after the match if he thought the England spinners of Ali, Adil Rashid and Zafar Ansari "outperformed" the Indians.

"I don't think so. I thought they (England) bowled well but it's not that they outperformed our spinners. It's not that they took five-fors and totally turned around the game. They should have won the game if they outperformed our spinners," Kohli said.

Kohli will do well to understand that outperforming does not necessarily mean bowling teams to victory but being better bowlers than the others. And, certainly Round One goes to the low-profile England spinners.

England spinners nearly bowled their team to victory, taking 13 of the 16 Indian wickets to fall before running out of time. In fact, they tried their best to win by rushing in their overs and bowling four extra overs in the Indian innings than what was calculated after England's declaration.

India have received a wake-up call and will also be look to keep their home record intact. Kohli and Kumble will settle for nothing less than an India series win.

Exciting times are ahead as England, as they showed in the first Test, cannot be taken for granted.