Joe Root hit his 38th Test century going past Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting on the way to become the second highest Test run scorer in the history of the game.
It was another incredible moment in a glorious career which now sees him destined, fitness allowing, in the next few years to beat the legendary Sachin Tendulkar at the top of the list.
And he won’t have had many more stress free days of Test cricket with England starting day three 225/2 just 133 runs behind India’s first innings score.
India needed to front up in a way they had singularly failed to do up until that point but again dropped short of the standards you’d expect.
Ollie Pope was the first of the two to register 50 as he and Root saw off an opening spell of bowling from India’s premier bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj with relative ease.
And after that the drop off in quality was stark with Shardul Thakur and Anshul Kamboj finding it almost impossible to consistently threaten either batter nor stem the runs.
Root soon went past fifty himself and any chance India had of getting back into the match had seemingly gone by lunch with England 332/2.
There was a frisson of excitement in the afternoon session with spin at both ends. Washington Sundar picking up two quick wickets.
He bowled an excellent 11 over spell which first accounted for Pope (71) caught at 1st slip and then Harry Brook (3) who was beaten in flight and stumped.
India delayed the second new ball but no more wickets were forthcoming and shortly after it was taken Root celebrated his milestone moment with a four to fine leg.
Bumrah went off after just one over of the second new ball. He was followed soon after by Mohammed Siraj as India’s problems started to snowball.
All the while Ben Stokes and Root continued at their own pace.
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With England’s bowlers needing a decent rest, neither batter showed much urgency but that changed with Siraj bowling short to Stokes.
The England captain took it on three times but in doing so caused himself to suffer to cramp up and eventually it led to him retiring hurt for 66.
But not before he became just the third England captain to hit a fifty and take five wickets in a Test.
Root reached 150 before he finally gave a chance to Ravindra Jadeja to find himself stumped.
Jamie Smith edged Bumrah behind to give India’s main man his first wicket of the innings, Chris Woakes (4) was bowled by a ball from Siraj that kept low but Liam Dawson (21*) and the returning Stokes (77*) saw England to stumps 544/7 a lead of 186.