England's day: From resilient to clinical to downright dismissive

At the end of the Lord's Test, as they trudged down the pavilion steps to shake hands with their opponents, England's players wore thousand-yard stares. The manner of defeat, coming at the end of a day they started with realistic chances of victory, clearly hadn't yet sunk in. They were dazed, bruised and dumfounded. It felt then like it would need something special for England to recover from such a defeat. Nobody, not even the players, would have expected something quite as special as this.

From the moment the England squad assembled in Leeds on Sunday morning, their focus was on this third Test. Generally, the team's leadership does not like to dwell on previous games. A mini debrief was held in the changing room after their defeat at Lord's but once they regrouped in Yorkshire, the loss was barely mentioned within the group. I think it's really important to learn but not to drag it into this Test match," Root said in the build-up. "We'll have new challenges, a new surface, a completely new Test match to deal with."

It speaks to the character and resilience of this England team that there was no hangover after Lord's. That they responded to what could have been a decisive blow in the series with a counterpunch of their own today. It wasn't just any old counterpunch either. They crushed India, first with the ball and then with the bat, with a performance that many - perhaps even themselves - doubted they were capable of. England may have been bullied on the final day at Lord's but they were the ones doing the bullying here.

They were certainly helped by Virat Kohli's decision to bat first having won the toss. It saved their under-pressure batting line-up from having to immediately front-up again after the capitulation on the final day in the capital and offered Anderson and Ollie Robinson the chance to take the new ball in helpful conditions.

At Lord's, India came out to bat for two overs after lunch on day five before declaring, forcing England's openers to get ready to bat in the ten-minute break between innings rather than during the rather more comfortable 40-minute interval. That was an example of India forcing England to do something they really did not want to do. Here, by batting first, Kohli forced England to do something they were probably actually quite happy about. From then on in, Root's men made all the running.

It was no surprise that Anderson was the one who set the tone. He was angry about the previous Test, about the ten-ball bouncer barrage from Jasprit Bumrah on the third evening at Lord's and his set-to with Kohli on day four. There is clearly no love lost between him and this India team. That frustration, that anger, appeared to fuel Anderson here. When he dismissed Kohli, following the wickets of KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara, the 39 year-old let out a sustained, guttural roar in the batsman's general direction. He had made his point in the best way he knows how.

Anderson's initial eight over burst was seam and swing bowling of the highest class. Without it, England could not have had the day they had. He adopted a different tactic with the new ball to the previous two Tests. Today, he generally curved the ball into the batsmen early on. Normally, that is the delivery which Anderson uses as the variation to the outswinger, his stock ball. He switched things up here. It led to Rahul and Pujara edging balls that left them, suckered into playing in expectation of another inswinger. The wobble seam delivery accounted for Kohli who, as he did at Trent Bridge, pushed at a ball he didn't have to and edged behind.

The rest of England's attack followed Anderson's lead. Robinson bowled well with the new ball and then picked up Ajinkya Rahane just before lunch with a nice delivery that just held its line. After the interval, he bowled a maiden at Rishabh Pant and then from the first ball of his next over, with Pant unnecessarily looking to score, Robinson found the edge. As much as Anderson's initial spell set up the day, these were a crucial pair of breakthroughs to sustain England's momentum.

Then it was the turn of Craig Overton and Sam Curran to join in on the act. They both took two wickets in successive deliveries to ensure no repeat of India's lower order antics in the first two Tests. After 36.3 overs, India were 67 for 5. Six balls later, they were 67 for 9. It was yet another period during the day when England were clinical and India rather less so.

Despite bowling the tourists out for such a paltry score, given the vulnerabilities of this England batting line-up, there was still the possibility that they might waste the good work of their bowlers. Any such fears had been kiboshed by the close, though, as Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns passed India's score and delivered what is already a very handy lead.

An awful opening over from Ishant Sharma which lasted nine balls and cost as many runs allowed England to get up and running quickly. A feature of the early exchanges was Hameed's ability to knock the ball into the off-side to get off strike, something that Dom Sibley was unable to do enough, and a tricky seven over spell before tea was negotiated without much alarm and a few runs to boot.

As England's new opening pair settled into their work after tea, they began to assert themselves more and more. Towards the end of the day, they weren't just clinical, they were downright dismissive. The first ball that Ravindra Jadeja bowled was swept for four over midwicket by Burns. When Mohammed Siraj bounced him a short while later, Burns pulled him for six. There were square drives to the boundary from Hameed and straight drives from Burns. Hameed brought up the century opening partnership with a delicious late glide past second slip for four.

England would have wanted a strong start to this game but they wouldn't have dared hope for a beginning as good as this. In the previous two Tests, they had had their moments but India had done much of the running. After defeat at Lord's, the series looked like it was slipping away from them. But in the space of 90 overs of domination, England have hauled themselves back into it, turning everything we thought we knew about this series on its head. It was a remarkable performance.

At the close, Hameed and Burns punched gloves and were serenaded all the way to the dressing rooms by a raucous standing ovation. If the batsmen had glanced to their left as they walked off, they would have had an illustration of just how quickly this series has been turned on its head. As India's players left the Headingley outfield, it was their turn to wear thousand-yard stares. They had had quite a day. So too had England.