It is not often that England close their eyes and pray for a raging turner, especially on the subcontinent. But last night Mark Butcher spoke longingly of waking today to a pitch with plenty of rough patches and lots of lovely dust. It didn't happen. The brick-red soil of the Sardar Patel stadium stubbornly refused to crumble, James Foster was standing up to Matthew Hoggard, and Ashley Giles had to take a half-step back to reality.

It was clear from the first few overs that there were to be no unexpected chocolates behind No. 15 on the advent calendar. Deep Dasgupta and SS Das passively let wide balls pass them by - days when India were chasing Australia in mind-blowing run-fests a fantasy away. And if India weren't going to fish, England were always going to have a hard time finding a suitable bait.

Andy Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard didn't bowl incisive early spells; Nasser Hussain didn't start the day with eight slips. But it was all perfectly understandable. The bowlers have had drummed into their heads a fixed mantra of frustrate, frustrate, frustrate. To replace that suddenly with thrusting attack would have been virtually impossible. And when the ball isn't even bouncing up and sticking out its hand for a cheery hello, where is the motivation?

Despite India's resistance, England emerged from the second Test with the sweeter smiles. They overcame the demons, not of the pitch, which turned out to be a batting paradise, but of the dastardly rumours. They ignored whispers of the ball turning before lunch on the first day, of the groundsman shaving the wicket, and rattled up 400 – against Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and the resurrected Javagal Srinath. They protected and survived the collective dodgy stomachs which have in the past turned less happy England tourists into one-eyed moaners.

Yes, they succumbed to Sachin Tenulkar in the first innings. But in the second they had the chance to learn about bowling to him without pressure, other than the worship of the crowd. And Richard Dawson can, for the rest of his life, dine out at the spinners' convention with the story of when he tempted Tendulkar into a lazy shot.

A line-up of besuited administrators elbowed each other to squeeze onto the presentation platform at the end of the match, but Hussain doesn't need any official confirmation of what he has achieved. England can now spit this precious draw in the faces of those who predicted 3-0 before they flew from Heathrow, and promised 3-0 after the ten-wicket defeat at Mohali. England have already done better than in 1992-93, and with Sourav Ganguly for once getting the better of Flintoff in the final overs, there will be plenty of spice to gargle with at Bangalore.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole tour for Wisden.com.

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