ENGLAND pulled off a nail-biting win over India in the First Test on the final day at Headingley.

Ben Stokes’ side were set a huge 371 to win the game, but completed an epic victory with five wickets to spare.

England’s most reliable batsman Joe Root who saw England over the line after Ben Duckett smashed a brilliant 149 to set up the dramatic run chase.

Duckett set the foundations with opening partner Zak Crawley, with an opening partnership of 188 runs, reducing the target by more than half.

Duckett raced to his hundred – his sixth in Tests, and his first in England‘s second innings – off 121 balls.

He was given a life on 97 by Yashasvi Jaiswal, who dropped his third catch of the match.

Crawley was out for 65, and then Shardul Thakur struck with two wickets in successive deliveries to give India hope, nabbing the wickets of Duckett and Harry Brook, who was caught out for a golden duck.

But Root with 53 and Jamie Smith with 44 saw England home.

For the majority of the final day of this First Test, it felt as if England were taking a leisurely stroll up Mount Everest. 

That is the trick of the light during the Bazball era. With its ‘impossible is nothing’ ethos, the miraculous can look mundane and the ridiculous can seem entirely logical.  

While Duckett and Crawley were piling up an opening partnership of 188, a mighty victory target of 371 looked trivial and piffling. 

But however it looked, this victory – completed calmly by five wickets through Root and Smith – was indeed another Headingley miracle.

One to rival those inspired by Ben Stokes in 2019 or Ian Botham and Bob Willis in 1981.

It’s just that England batted so well, they didn’t even need to turn it into a genuinely dramatic nerve-jangler. 

This was the second-highest run chase England have ever completed and the second-highest amount of runs any team has scored on the final day to win any Test match.  

When India were 430-3 before lunch on day two – or when the tourists were 333-4 in their second innings late on day four – this one looked beyond even Stokes’ shock troops. 

And in years gone by, having been set such a lofty target on Monday evening, England would have been looking to block it out for a draw or performing rain dances, with the wet stuff having been forecast to fall over Leeds. 

Not the team of Stokes and coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum, though. 

When bowler Josh Tongue appeared at a press conference on Monday night, he spoke of England’s complete confidence in completing this task, and of the fact that a draw could never be a good result. 

Inside the Bazball bubble they think entirely differently to the way in which cricketers ever used to think. 

And it works. Sure, Test pitches in England don’t often deteriorate as they used to and, sure, India were dozy in the field. Their gun bowler Jasprit Bumrah didn’t fire on the final day and their back-up seamers aren’t consistently good enough. 

But this was still a Herculean task. An ironman triathlon completed with the minimum of sweat. 

No team has ever previously lost a Test after scoring five individual centuries, as India did here. Poor Rishabh Pant compiled two of them himself, in spectacular fashion, and still ended up a loser.  

Duckett, that murderous left-handed gnome, pummelled an outstanding 149 to lead the charge. 

The long and the short of it was that Duckett and Crawley – who towers over his opening partner by almost a foot – made a bungalow out of a skyscraper.  

Early on, Bumrah had looked unplayable, and Crawley was surviving an lbw review from Mohammad Siraj.  

Yet as soon as the back-up bowlers came on, the pressure was relieved and the runs came in torrents.

Duckett was cover driving the seamers with savage intent and reverse-sweeping spinner Ravindra Jadeja with expert skill – one of those efforts even soaring over the ropes for six. 

Duckett was dropped by the butter-fingers of Yashasvi Jaiswal – his third spill of the match – at deep backward square off Siraj when he had reached 97.

Soon, a reverse sweep off Jadeja for four brought up his sixth Test hundred – he leapt and punched the air. There was no sign of altitude sickness on the Himalayan slopes England were scaling.  

Then, at 181-0, the light mizzle turned into heavier rain and after the 20-minute break, England wobbled. 

Crawley had just taken England past the half-way mark with a boundary off Prasidh Krishna, when he edged the next ball to KL Rahul at slip for 65.  

Ollie Pope soon played on to Krishna – who had been a whipping-boy until now – as India began to get interested. 

Still, Duckett powered on – hooking Bumrah to the boundary, then reverse-sweeping Jadeja for a maximum before he perished at cover to Shardul Thakur one short of a 150.

Next came Harry Brook, who added a golden duck with a leg-side strangle to his first-innings 99 – two of the least-wanted scores in cricket in the same Test.

Suddenly, that leisurely stroll had turned into an uphill slog – 118 were still needed with six wickets remaining. 

Stokes saw off the hat-trick ball with a cover drive for three but the skipper never looked comfortable. 

India burnt their third and final DRS review with an LBW shout by Jadeja against Root – who promptly nutmegged Karun Nair for a soft boundary which epitomised India’s sloppiness in the field. 

Stokes ran down the wicket at Krishna and cracked one through the covers, then edges the next ball past first slip to the boundary, it was scratchy stuff from the skipper and soon he perished by top-edging a reverse-sweep – a shot he never looked comfortable playing. 

When Jamie Smith strode to the crease, 69 runs were still required but the wicketkeeper-batsman played a sensible knock, supporting the unflappable Root, who looked every inch the world No 1 batsman he is. 

Root reached a classy half-century before Smith cracked a couple three mighty boundaries off Jadeja to clinch the deal.