Ranchi, February 27

Skipper Ben Stokes expressed pride in how England have fought toe to toe with India despite not having “a chance in hell of competing” with the hosts in the ongoing series.

India registered a five-wicket win in the fourth and penultimate Test to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series against England, who suffered their first Test series defeat under the leadership of Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum.

“3-1 doesn’t look great, but the way in which we’ve come at India is what I’m most proud of,” Stokes told British media. “We didn’t have a chance in hell of even competing with India. But that wasn’t an easy win for India, and I think they would admit that,” he added. “This young, inexperienced team has been successful over the past two years, but coming to India is a completely different beast, something that this team has not been exposed to.”

Stokes conceded that the Indian spinners’ skill in those conditions made it “nigh-on impossible” to play with their attacking game.

“Looking back at when we had our chance to bat yesterday, cricket is always skill against skill. (Ravichandran) Ashwin, (Ravindra) Jadeja and Kuldeep (Yadav) and the conditions we found ourselves in against them was very, very challenging. When India have a sniff in conditions like that, any team is going to find it hard to not only keep the scoreboard ticking but rotate the strike. You’ve got to give them a lot of credit for the way in which they bowled in very favourable conditions. On this occasion, their skill was better than ours yesterday.”