We didn't have a chance in hell of even competing with India: Ben Stokes

India completed a famous victory in Ranchi, getting the better of England by five wickets on a turner of a wicket, but this was impressive purely because India didn’t have the services of some of their biggest players like Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami, KL Rahul, and even Rishabh Pant.

While that had substantially crippled their strength in the series, they still managed to complete a 3-1 win. That only went on to showcase how brilliant they are at home - and why England’s fightback is a story that will never be forgotten. England skipper Ben Stokes stated that before the start of the series, no one had given them a chance, but his inexperienced spin attack provided them a chance to contest on even terms.

"The way in which we've come at India is what I'm most proud of. This young, inexperienced team has been successful over the past two years, but coming to India is a completely different beast, something that this team has not been exposed to. The way in which we have reacted to everything, even being on the wrong end of three results, is something I'm incredibly proud of," Ben Stokes told BBC.

"We didn't have a chance in hell of even competing with India. But even today that wasn't an easy win for India and I think they would admit that. I'm very proud of the way every player has thrown everything at India. No one has ever taken a backward step.

"There was a lot of question marks around the selections of Bash and Tom before a ball was bowled this series. But Tom's played every game and Shoaib has performed incredibly well in this game. They'll be able to leave at the end of this tour with their heads held very high.

"For us as an England team going forward, we've got more exciting talent which is a great thing for English cricket. It's the same for India, they've had to bring in some inexperienced players because of certain circumstances. It's been great for inexperienced guys coming in and almost throwing out the theory of needing experience."

Stokes pointed out that England could have had the upper hand in the Ranchi Test after securing a 46-run lead in the first innings - particularly accounting for the fact that India had to bat in the fourth innings - but admitted that their batting display in the second innings cost them big-time.

"I think you've just got to give so much credit to the way India's spinners bowled in that very, very crucial period of the game," he said. "It was very obvious they sensed an opportunity to really put us under pressure. When you've got three world-class spinners operating in conditions like that, you know you're going to be up against it. That period yesterday after lunch was the game.

"Looking back at when we had our chance to bat yesterday, cricket is always skill against skill. Ashwin, Jadeja and Kuldeep and the conditions we found ourselves in against them was very, very challenging. When India have a sniff in conditions like that, any team is going to find it hard. On this occasion, their skill was better than ours yesterday.

"It was nigh on impossible to operate how we wanted to. But one thing is that we don't tell people how to go out and play. What we do is give people the freedom and the confidence to go out and assess the way they think is best for them, but also for the team, in every single situation. It was very, very tough yesterday.

"I thought Foakes read the situation very well, dragging the game out as long as he could while ticking the board over because every run was going to be crucial. We obviously would have liked more but the longer that game drew out, it gave us more of an opportunity to exploit a pitch that was always going to get harder to bat on.

"That knock Jurel played to get India closer to our first innings score was a crucial point in the game. We found it tough to get anything out of the wicket. If we had broken that partnership… but they got it down to 40. If we had kept that to 70-100 the game might have been different. But who knows? We threw everything at them today and there's not much more we could have done."

With India already securing the series 3-1, both sides will now take on each other in the fifth and final Test of the series in Dharamsala on March 7.