While India have the upper hand now, here is what the team needs to do to make the series safe in the Ranchi Test
Till the third morning of the third Test, the India-England series was hanging in the balance. Then the tables were turned decisively against Bazball and India recorded a 434-run win in Rajkot on Sunday. It was their largest ever winning margin for winning a Test match.
India learned from their faulty selection and tactical errors that cost them the first Test in Hyderabad. They prevailed in a see-saw battle in Visakhapatnam to level the series. And now the home side has finally acquired the tactical talent to gain a dominant position.
India squandered a 190-run lead in the first innings and lost the first Test. Omitting a wicket-taker like left-arm leg spinner Kuldeep Yadav for the sake of batting depth with all-rounder Axar Patel was a blunder. It allowed England to extend their second innings to 420 from 163/5 in Hyderabad.
A flat-footed captaincy exacerbated the incorrect selection. Ollie Pope was allowed to play his way to a save of 196 for England. Instead of cutting off his chances to score by posting a short third man and deep point, India continued to wait for him to make a mistake. Ultimately, Pope's reverse sweep tactic threw India's experienced spin duo Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja off their impeccable line and length.
India corrected the field setting in the second Test. As a result, Pope has since scored a total of 88 in four innings. The inclusion of Kuldeep Yadav, who took the crucial wickets of Zak Crawley, Ben Stokes and Ben Duckett (twice), also posed a new challenge for England. Even then, India were left scratching their heads as England dismissed 207/2 in just 35 overs on the second day of the third Test, with Duckett gleefully scoring boundaries with the slog sweep.
Finally, after the third morning started with another slog sweep to the boundary from centurion Duckett, India's skipper, Rohit Sharma, pushed the mid-wicket fielder back to the boundary. Now limited to singles from his slog sweep, Duckett's scoring dried up. Kuldeep Yadav floated the ball wide of the stump, adding to Duckett's frustration, and he eventually succumbed to a loose shot. England fell from 224/2 to 319 all out.
Better pitches contributed to the turnaround in the series. India had collapsed to 202 all out, losing by 28 runs in Hyderabad on a pitch that deteriorated to such an extent that England's tall left-arm spinner Tom Hartley was able to get a seven-wicket haul despite his meager experience. On pitches that remained firm on the third and fourth days in Vizag and Rajkot, India's highly skilled and experienced spin bowlers had the upper hand over their novice English counterparts.
India also improved their batting line-up by finally dropping the hapless Shreyas Iyer, whose confidence seems to have been shattered by his vulnerability to aggressive fast bowling. His replacement, Sarfaraz Khan, long awaited for the opportunity after his star turn at under-19 level, scored 62 and an unbeaten 68 at almost a run-a-ball in the third Test. Had the runout not been his batting partner's fault, he would have got a century on debut.
Khan showed his mastery over spinners with well-placed shots from the front foot, retreating to the crease to work short-length balls for wristy singles. His inclusion has strengthened an Indian middle order that looked unreliable with Iyer and newcomer Rajat Patidar looking out of his depth. The batting will be even stronger in the next Test in Ranchi with the likely return of KL Rahul in place of Patidar.
While India have established a dominant position, they still need to get their bowling combination right for the fourth Test starting on Friday. The pitch in Ranchi is usually a slow turner on which left-arm spinners thrive. The wide ground also helps spinners to trap batsmen with catches in the deep.
Under such circumstances, India would do well to select Axar Patel as the fourth spinner. This will boost their chances of concluding the series in Ranchi itself, instead of the usually pace-friendly Dharamsala, the venue of the fifth Test.
It is a tough decision to leave out the second player, Mohammed Siraj, after his heroic four wickets to restrict England to 319 in the first innings in Rajkot. But India must leave no stone unturned to maintain the upper hand against this feisty and innovative English side. Despite the impressive margin of victory in Rajkot, the home side would do well to remember that it took back-to-back double centuries for young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal to take a lead in the series.
England are likely to return to the spin quartet they fielded in Vizag, replacing one of their fast bowlers with off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who was left out in Rajkot. The likely dropout is 41-year-old James Anderson, who got just one wicket in Rajkot and was taken out by Jaiswal in the second innings. Mark Wood has the extra pace to make a difference even on slow, low ground, especially with his bodyline tactics.
The bigger problem for Bazball is batting as India's fielding tactics have cut off easy boundaries with sweeps. The Indian spinners are also trying their best to trap the English batsmen LBW when they take out the broom. It will be interesting to see if England will adopt more conventional batting methods after the two collapses in Rajkot.
The concern for England is Joe Root's poor run in the series. He was England's mainstay on previous trips to the subcontinent but now appears in two minds in the Bazball era. But he is too good a batsman to miss out every time, and Ranchi may see him back to his best. All the more reason for India not to give up on selection and tactics.
Sumit Chakraberty is a writer based in Bengaluru.