On Day 3, India were hit with the cruelty of a number: they had conceded 500 runs in an innings of an away Test for the first time in a decade. On the fourth day at Old Trafford, that number ticked beyond 600 - a territory they last wandered into in 2014, at the Basin Reserve. That Wellington Test might yet prove a red herring. Or, if things miraculously fall into place on Day 5, a strangely perfect reference point.
The thread connecting Basin Reserve to Old Trafford is Brendon McCullum, then New Zealand's captain, now England's head coach. Eleven years ago, McCullum was joined by BJ Watling with his side 94 for 5 in the third innings, trailing by 152. He walked back with a triple hundred. The game was saved. The innings became a parable of resistance: of a team under siege refusing to fold.
This week in Manchester, India have been under siege, and for the first time in the series, which they trail 1-2. They lost an important toss, posted what looked like a fighting total, and then wilted under postcard weather. Over five-and-a-half sessions, they watched Zak Crawley carve cover drives, Ben Duckett feast on freebies down leg, Joe Root do Joe Root things, and Ben Stokes defy his body in his bloody-minded eagerness to land the knockout blow.
Every session felt like a rerun. Every fielder chased leather. Bumrah saw a three-digit number under 'runs conceded' for the first time in his career. Shubman Gill looked around for bowling options, some of which were hiding in plain sight. When it finally ended, England had piled up 669. A lead of 311. Cold, unblinking numbers. Add another to that - five - for the number of sessions left in the game.
Fifteen minutes before lunch on the fourth day, the third innings began. And with it, the whiff - and risk - of surrender. Yashasvi Jaiswal, unusually slow to walk off the field during the changeover, was retracing that path four balls into India's innings, this time in full batting gear. Off the very next ball, Sai Sudharsan joined him in the dressing room.
Gill, perhaps still coming to terms with the consequences of decisions taken and not taken, was already stretching beyond the boundary rope to face Chris Woakes' hat-trick ball. It was the unfortunate byproduct of 157.1 overs in the field - legs heavy, minds frayed. At 0 for 2, a match that had begun to feel lost now threatened to become a procession. And for the first time in the series, a Test seemed like it would not see the fifth day.
But Gill and KL Rahul fought back, not with a counterattack, but with calm. Gill just survived Woakes' hat-trick ball, which clipped his pads but was going down leg. Rahul got India off the mark in the next over. And they made it to lunch with no further damage.
What followed after the break was not a charge, but a slow cooling of the burn. They didn't chase the game. They slowed it down. The crowd dipped and swelled. The field kept shifting: slip became leg slip, silly point jumped to short leg, and sometimes Stokes stationed a fielder in their eyeline at short midwicket. Sometimes he placed two.
Rahul held his shape, bat tucked inside the line, leaving with discipline. Gill was targeted with inswingers, the kind that have often undone him. Jofra Archer found more swing (1.6x) and seam (1.5x) than in his first spell in the first innings, and induced a false shot nearly every second ball. One booming inswinger had him convinced he had Gill, enough to fall to his knees in appeal and convince Stokes to review. The evidence was inconclusive - bat or pad first - and Gill survived.
But he didn't just survive. When full balls drifted into his zone, he drove sumptuously down the ground. Not only to change the tempo, but to help scuff the ball. And once the Dukes loses its shine, it tends to quieten. Gill raced to 39 off 46. For the first time in the match, India weren't reeling. They were resisting.
It wasn't without scare. Gill took a knock on a thumb already strapped up. He was dropped on 46 by Liam Dawson off Brydon Carse. Rahul was struck on the elbow, then the knee. He was on 20 off 75 at one point. But the scoreboard no longer mattered. The clock did. One bowler, one spell at a time.
They didn't have to face the series-leading wicket-taker. Stokes, managing cramp, didn't bowl. One bowler short meant longer spells, softer balls, tired arms. The match didn't move forward but India's position did. That was the point. This wasn't a rescue act. It was a rope-climb out of the trench.
After 50, Gill slowed down. Rahul began to find the fence and overtook him at 71. When the stand reached 100, Gill raised a quiet thumbs-up. When it touched 150, Rahul returned the gesture from the non-striker's end, each classy batter going into his batting space.
It was the first time in this series that a pair had batted through two entire sessions. From 0 for 2 in the first hour, India had done well to reach stumps at 174 for 2. But the equation remains stark. Three sessions to go, just to escape with a draw. The second new ball is due in 17 overs. And after a night's rest, Stokes might be back too.
India still have to survive Day 5 on a wearing pitch - which is hard enough - only made harder by Rishabh Pant's compromised status. With a fractured toe, the batter most capable of flipping a game in a session may not be able to move freely, or bat for long. Still, the path to safety exists. By batting through, Gill and Rahul have opened up other avenues. There's some help in the forecast: 30% chance of rain in the morning. And if India erase the 134-run deficit and sneak ahead, those runs will take time to chase - and time may yet become a factor.
England remain firmly in control. For all practical purposes, they cannot lose the Test, and therefore the series. But India, after two chastening days, are still standing. And there remains hope.
At the end of a day when the series could have been sealed and signed, the chance to go into another fifth day still alive... for now, that will have to be enough.
