It is going to take something very, very special for India to win this Test, even if they have the world’s greatest limited-overs chaser within their ranks.

Resuming at 114/0 with a lead of 163, England’s openers Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed made steady, if not spectacular, progress on the first session on Day 5, putting on 97 runs in 29 overs at a run rate of 3.34 to all but shut India out of the match, as they went in to lunch with a lead of 260.

Unlike Day 4, it was the dour Cook who was the aggressor. Despite a few play-and-misses, Cook deployed his favourite square cut behind gully to good effect, hitting five boundaries in the area and looking imperious to whatever India threw at him. As the session progressed, the captain progressively caught more confident, picking up runs with every delivery and brought up yet another Test century, the 30th of his career, just before lunch.

His 19-year-old debutant partner at the other, Hameed, looked a lot more tentative but gamely hung around. Finally after a protracted period where he was bogged down, Hameed’s eyes lit up when he saw a wide long-hop from Mishra. He went at it hard, but only managed to hand Mishra a simple caught-and-bowled chance.

Joe Root followed Hameed by trying an ugly slog across the line to Mishra, but only managed to top-edge a simple catch to Saha. It, however, signalled England’s intent: they were ready to start throwing their bats around and ensure that their bowlers got a crack at India. A declaration could be incoming just before tea.

Brief scores:

England 537 (Ben Stokes 128, Joe Root 124, Moeen Ali 117; Ravindra Jadeja 3/86, Mohammed Shami 2/65, R Ashwin 2/167) and 211/2 (Alastair Cook 106 not out, Haseeb Hameed 92; Amit Mishra 2/38) lead India 488 (Murali Vijay 126, Cheteshwar Pujara 124; Adil Rashid 4/114, Zafar Ansari 2/77, Moeen Ali 2/85) by 260 runs.