India took the spoils from the first Test to leave England with more soul searching to do on the subcontinent.
It seems cruel that Alastair Cook had to be on the losing side despite his heroic rearguard century, but he cannot carry this team on his own.
A nine-wicket defeat is as big as it sounds and it is up to the rest of England's batsmen to get their team back into this series after their abject performance here in Ahmedabad.
When it came it came quickly.
England's hopes of saving a draw in the first Test disappeared in a hail of Indian boundaries as they reached the 77 they needed to win for the loss of just one wicket in 15.3 overs.
The brave fightback from Cook and the brilliant Matt Prior that had stirred those feelings of hope in English supporters, lasted just another 40 minutes on the morning of the final day.
Prior served up a tame return caught and bowled chance to Pragyan Ojha for 91 and the look of utter deflation told the story.
He knew that he and Cook needed to take England to lunch and beyond if the great escape was to be made, but by the time everyone was tucking into their curry the team were all out.
It was 406 all out, a lead of 76, but it was at least 76 runs short of what they needed.
Cook's vigil ended 24 minutes shy of 10 hours when he was undone on the back foot by Ojha with one that kept a touch low, turn into his pad and onto the stumps.
His final tally of 176 made an emphatic statement about him as a batsman and a captain and the Indians will be thinking long and hard about him for the rest of the series.
They will not however be that concerned about the rest of the England batsmen, Prior excepted, who failed to cut the mustard yet again.
A collective return of 68 runs in eight innings from Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Samit Patel, is quite frankly pathetic.
The assumed wisdom following similar batting displays in the UAE was that the middle order couldn't all fail so spectacularly again and again.
They did, and history has repeated itself once again.
It shouldn't be left to the likes of Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan and Graeme Swann to bat England out of trouble, but that was their task and unsurprisingly they couldn't manage it either.
Broad offered a caught and bowled back to Umesh Yadav, Swann was bowled reverse-sweeping R Ashwin before Bresnan was the last man out, caught at cover.
Even without Gautam Gambhir, who fly back to Delhi following the death of his grandmother, India hardly broke sweat in reaching their target.
Cheteshwar Pujara and Virender Sehwag set off like the clappers and it was only a very well judged catch from Pietersen on the boundary that did for the latter.
Virat Kohli enjoyed his 14 not out a little too much, switching bats and riling the England fielders in the process, but it was his moment to enjoy.
There were choice words between him and Jimmy Anderson and that will be a duel to keep an eye on for the rest of the series, but England don't really have much to complain about here, they were 2 best by a distance.