So, did you believe? And be honest, because there really is no shame or treason in admitting not.

At the midway point of this First Test in Hyderabad, England trailed by 190 first-innings runs, almost three times the greatest margin previously overturned by a touring team on Indian soil, and that by Australia way back in 1964.

Such had been England’s more recent struggles that had they replicated even the best of their second-dig totals from the previous, spiralling tour in 2021, they still would have been left stomaching an innings defeat.

To help matters in this particular affair, when Ben Stokes was the fifth second-innings wicket to fall, England were still 27 runs from asking their hosts to don pads again, knowing that even if they could, their nominal attack leader, Jack Leach, was hobbling around with a knee the size of a balloon.

So, let us pause here in the tale of the Heist of Hyderabad, swiftly confirmed by Stokes to be the greatest win of his captaincy, to (self-)acknowledge that no one — broadcasters, fans and writers alike — really, truly believed. Expect, of course, the small group of people with means to affect the outcome.

The power of belief has not gone undersold in the Bazball era, individuals urged to back their own ability and emboldened towards a sense of belonging at Test level long before they might have provided the kind of objective evidence that was once prerequisite.

In bowling England to victory with a redemptive seven-for on day four, Tom Hartley delivered the strongest case in point yet.

But collective belief and the resilience it breeds is something different, perhaps even harder to forge; reliant on much more than one good score or a couple of early poles. Under Stokes and Brendon McCullum, though, England have it in spades.

This was the eighth time in 12 Tests since the end of the original Bazball summer that England have been involved in a barnstormingly close finish; five settled by margins of fewer than 50 runs, two by fewer than three wickets and one, in Rawalpindi, with minutes to spare. Such dramatic finales have often been attributed to the regime’s general chaos, the high-risk, high-reward philosophy that has created toe-to-toe contests swinging violently in either direction before arriving at crescendo somewhere close to centre.

But there is also something to be said, too, for England’s defiance, their insistence on making close games of lost causes and their willingness to chase victory above the meandering draw. Hyderabad, clearly, is the most extreme instance yet, but Stokes’s men have fought back from a distant way behind the eight-ball in at least half of those tight games, and that is without even considering the series of four unlikely chases during the 2022 home summer, all eventually completed at a canter.

Yes, giving it a crack until the last probably should be a minimum requirement for the international sportsman, but remember that cricket is not like football or golf, played to the completion of 90 minutes or 18 holes, regardless of the state of play. In the Test arena, broken, beaten teams can — and routinely do — accelerate their own demise.

Perhaps the most remarkable element of Ollie Pope’s innings of 196 was that, from the moment Stokes’s departure left him as the sole surviving top-six batter, it was clear that only an innings of such magnitude could give England even a sniff. At that point, they still trailed and he had made 60, almost twice his previous best score in India.

Similar could be said of Hartley, who must have known that, despite his nightmare on day one, with Leach on one leg and teenager Rehan Ahmed expensive, the fourth-innings spinning burden would fall on his wiry shoulders.

“It’s amazing what you can get out of individuals if you walk the walk after talking the talk,” Stokes said of his backing of both players.

So, on to Vizag from Friday and now, for English fans, with licence to dream, for all the memory of three years ago, when a similarly heralded victory in Chennai was followed by a hat-trick of dismantlings, will keep expectations in check. There is, though, a sudden vulnerability to India, for whom this was only a fourth home defeat in 10 years but, also, a second in their last three Tests.

Virat Kohli will not return to reinforce a susceptible middle order until the Third Test, while Ravindra Jadeja will miss the second with a hamstring problem in what is a heavy blow across all three facets of the game.

England have selection questions of their own to answer in the coming days and know their challenge remains every bit as large as it appeared this time last week. After this most extraordinary of triumphs, however, they will certainly not lack for belief.