But for naivety and the compusure of last wicket pair Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, West Indies would have accomplished in one game what England couldn't manage in five by beating the World Champions in their own backyard.
The catalyst for India's triumph was the increasingly impressive Rohit Sharma, who skilfully anchored what had appeared to be a forlorn chase with 72 before he fell with just 11 runs required.
For a while it seemed that Sharma, famously dubbed Nohit by his detractors, was going to be a talent unfulfilled. A lack of consistency, a seeming love of the celebrity afforded by the IPL and perhaps a touch too much arrogance all contributed to the man who Shane Warne described as having "all the talent in the world" to be left on the fringes of the Indian side.
But a pair of hundreds in an obscure one-day tournament in Zimbabwe in 2010 hinted that there was some substance to go with the style and his first-class average of 63 tells you that there is talent in abundance.
Although he missed out on the World Cup squad, his curve has continued to go upwards since thanks to a strong performance in the Caribbean in June and perhaps a defining knock yesterday.
He is in the Test squad for the tour to Australia and along with Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane forms a quartet of immensely promising young Indian batsmen.
It seems that the man Bored Cricket once amusingly called The Artist formerly known as Nohit, has a chance of becoming a Prince amongst batsmen.
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