England's cricketers had a good laugh, and then went on to give themselves an outside chance of levelling the second Test series.
Graeme Swann revealed at the close of play that "self-effacing humour" in the dressing room at lunch helped England fight their way back into the match at the PCA stadium.
Recalling the mood over lunch, Swann told Sky Sports 1: "We all sat there laughing at each other - saying 'how bad are we?'.
"It was self-effacing humour - and it was important, because if we'd got down and down-trodden it could all have turned out a lot worse."
At lunch India had reached a formidable 302 for one.
They were eventually bowled out for 453 despite twin hundreds from Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid in a record second-wicket stand of 314.
Swann and Andrew Flintoff each finished with three wickets, the Nottinghamshire off-spinner's haul comprising the prize scalps of both Gambhir (179) and Dravid (136) - and master batsman Sachin Tendulkar.
Swann added later: "At lunchtime with them at 302 for one and the two who were set going so well, we were looking around wondering where the next wicket was going to come from.
"Luckily it was a light-hearted dressing room and we were laughing in the face of adversity and it seemed to work for us. Everything went our way the first hour after lunch so we were very happy with that hour and it's got us back into a position where we can still hopefully affect the result of the game."
He stressed: "There are two ways you can take adversity, you can either really feel sorry for yourselves and get down in the dumps or you can have a laugh at yourself.
"Some people would say the English way is to be miserable about it but this particular team tend to look on the bright side of things.
"I wouldn't want to be part of a team that felt sorry for themselves and were down in the dumps. You've got to accept sometimes in cricket that the guy is going to play well at the other end.
"Realistically it's still a very good pitch so we've done well to keep ourselves in the game by bowling them out for 450. Anything over 500 and we'd have been out of it, there are only two results then, but by keeping them down to 450 and if we can possibly get a lead then we can have a crack on the last day."
Swann's display was matched by all-rounder Flintoff, who claimed three for 54 from 30.2 overs, to at least keep England in contention for the victory they require to level the series.
India's earlier domination was driven by their second wicket pair with opener Gambhir passing 1,000 Test runs in 2008 before falling for 179 and former India captain Dravid hitting his first century in 20 innings.
"I'm really relieved, it's nice to be contributing again," said Dravid. "It's been a tough year, it's not been easy, so it's good to get runs.
"It's natural there was going to be a lot of speculation and scrutiny about my performances and to be honest I've not scored enough runs...that's part and parcel of international cricket
