Test cricket deserves better than the execrable final day that was served up at Mohali. A match that could, and should, have been fought to a rousing finish was allowed to meander to a miserable stalemate, thanks to India’s misguided obsession with personal milestones, and the equally daft decision to limit one of the sport’s marquee contests to a mere two Tests.

Let me clarify one or two points. India richly deserve their series win because they were the better team. With the exception of VVS Laxman, each of their top six batsmen produced contest-turning performances in at least one of the matches, if not both, and in Zaheer Khan they possessed the stand-out bowler on either side. If I was to draw up a composite eleven for the series*, it would be dominated seven-four by Indians, with Graeme Swann just sneaking into the spinner’s vacancy on account of his attacking intentions.

But it is not enough in the current climate merely to be the better side, because Test cricket is fighting for its life in the face of the Twenty20 revolution, and every game that fails to spark the imagination feels like another step towards extinction. So-called “purists” who write in to complain that I am just another thrill-seeking bandwagon-jumper are missing the point. There is a massive difference between a draw where one side battles to safety in the face of overwhelming odds, as India managed at Lord’s in 2007, and a stalemate such as this. The punters at Mohali voted with their feet, and who - in the circumstances - could blame them?

With even a micron of intent, Mahendra Singh Dhoni could have been sizing up a shot at his fifth victory in five Tests as captain, a statistic that would have counted for much, much more than Gautam Gambhir’s second Test hundred in the game, or Yuvraj Singh’s first against any team bar Pakistan - feats that, karmically, were both missed. Instead, Dhoni’s only notable entry in the ledger was also the most farcical - the moment he took off his pads and came on to bowl the last over of the match, his second in Test cricket. Last week’s historic victory in Chennai breathed new life into the old game, and South Africa’s follow-up was a fillip like few others. Today’s drudgery, however, was a sad and untimely regression.

Test cricket needs saving from itself as well. Nobody could have foreseen the need to reschedule the Mumbai Test, but to choose a venue so far north that fog and bad light were an inevitability was not the ideal solution. Having said that, the real flaw was in the game’s stiff-limbed regulations, which still - even in this professional day and age - require the players to break for full-length lunch and tea intervals. There are no such qualms about pushing on through the evening session if the light is deemed acceptable - at Perth last week, play on the fourth day finished at 8pm after three straight hours in the field. A measure of flexibility would have restored several lost overs to this contest, and improved the prospects of a proper finish.