There was very little reaction from Ben Stokes. Ravichandran Ashwin changed ends and came on to bowl just one over before Lunch, and snuck a slider in between Stokes's bat and pad to leave England five down. There was more a sigh of sheer helplessness than an emotive shrug for being dismissed, perhaps a resignation to the fact that even a 3-2 outcome was a pipe dream.
You could put Stokes's exit down to multiple factors - the cunning use of variations from a 100-Test, 500-wicket spin veteran and the England captain's own form this series and his vulnerability to play spin. But England shouldn't have had him in the middle so early on the day to begin with. Three out of the four wickets that fell before Stokes exposed the cracks that have developed under the surface of Bazball through their month-and-a-half-long ordeal in India.
There's no two ways about India currently being among the toughest places to play away Tests in. But the quick turn of events on the third morning for England was more self-inflicted. Even with a sizeable deficit, England batters had the best opportunity to take a leaf out of India's Day 2 batting demonstration [link Day 2 copy] on a pitch that still didn't do too much for the bowlers. But, they choose to stick to their guns of what has often resembled mindless aggression in the face of sustained pressure.
Against a fidgety Ben Duckett, Ashwin's weapon of choice was dip and speed variations. On just the second ball that he faced, the England opener missed a sweep and then went down the track two balls later, only to be fooled in the air by a much slower ball and get bowled. Zak Crawley played out two maiden overs from Jasprit Bumrah, and the close-in fielders around him could sense the dot-ball pressure brewing.
Ashwin rattled him further with one that spun sharply and went through for byes. He then moved Sarfaraz Khan from forward short leg to a position slightly closer to leg slip and got the ball to drift and turn to the leg stump - a ploy he's successfully used against the likes of Steve Smith. Crawley saw the line and went for the flick with the turn, but hit straight to Sarfaraz.
While not falling to pacers, one of Ollie Pope's tasks this series has been to try and break the shackles against India's spinners. Despite his match-turning century in Hyderabad, he has failed in this endeavour more often than succeeded. But even with the game still on the line on Saturday, Pope and England didn't waver from this strategy. Nothing else explains Pope's premeditation to sweep Ashwin away when the spinner was getting some extra bounce from a length and keeping the one close-in fielder interested. The result, like in the first innings, wasn't pretty as Pope top-edged to Yashasvi Jaiswal at square leg.
In the post Lunch session, Joe Root played some exquisite shots against both pace and spin without breaking much of a sweat on his way to another half-century - reestablishing the fact that many of England's morning-session woes could've been dead-batted with even a modicum of resilience.
Which now begs a few questions about England's Test tendencies - can the mantra of 'this is how we play' cut it everywhere? Stokes dismissed the notion that after the unprecedented highs of a series win in Pakistan, the humbling lows in India come as a trade-off for their high-risk ideology. Yet, there have been series-defining moments where they have been let down by their rigid commitment to this cause.
At the start of the third day in Rajkot, England had an opportunity to push ahead on the back of a Ben Duckett century. India had posted 445 in the first innings but England had responded well, getting to 207/2 at stumps on Day 2. But instead of eating into the deficit, England simply collapsed in the aftermath of an unprovoked reverse ramp from Joe Root against Bumrah. He fell, the rest followed and England went from 224 for 2 to 319 all out, letting India off the hook and giving them a big first-innings lead to build on.
In Ranchi, they fumbled a first-innings lead - however slender - with more abysmal decision-making with the bat in garb of being brave. The same team that batted for 104 overs across the first two days in the first innings, folded in just 53.5 overs in little less than two sessions in the second.
This was a series for England's batters to come forward and do much of the heavy-lifting while having to make do with an inexperienced bowling attack. In the four defeats, Pope batted for more than 50 balls in just two innings while Duckett has done that just once outside of his century in the Rajkot fixture. To put these numbers in perspective, Kuldeep Yadav batted for 91 balls in Rajkot, 131 in Ranchi and 69 in Dharamsala. Stokes meanwhile ended the series on 199 runs, with seven scores under 20 as India's spinners and Bumrah took turns to puncture the aura of him being England's big saviour.
Overall numbers will still tell you there's merit to how England have tried to be the flag-bearers of Test cricket rejuvenation. This is afterall their first series defeat under the Stokes-McCullum duo since they took over in 2022. Yet, when the dust settles and a post-mortem is attempted, all roads need to lead to some degree of tempering. England's aggression needs to come with an asterisk for it to be universally effective.
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