Magnificent India get ball swinging to leave England’s series lead – and dignity – hanging by a thread

India (19-0) trail England (246) by 227 runs: Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma were immaculate with the new ball, getting first into England’s heads and then through their defences

Mohammed Shami appeals for the wicket of England's Ben Stokes (PA)

Watching England bat these days is a bit like watching them batting against the West Indies in the 1980s. Except now, everyone is the West Indies. New Zealand are the West Indies. Pakistan are the West Indies. The West Indies are the West Indies. Like a malfunctioning hologram projector in a dystopian sci-fi film, England’s batsmen are somehow managing to raise armies of Malcolm Marshalls and Joel Garners wherever they go.

Credit, first of all, where credit is required. India were magnificent. Having lost the toss for the fourth time out of four, they bowled England out on the first evening with one of the finest displays of pure swing bowling ever seen from a foreign team on these shores. It is a measure of how thoroughly they dominated the early part of the day that even England’s total of 246 – on a pitch where 400-450 feels like par – still felt like a monumental escape.

For it was not long after lunch that England were 89-6, and in danger of surrendering their 2-1 lead on the spot. Worse, their dignity was hanging by a thread. India’s tails were up, their tongues wagging, every ball seemingly drawing some strangled appeal or bitchy comment. Sam Curran’s fearless 78 – the sort of vital counter-attacking innings Ben Stokes hasn’t played for about a year – eventually gave England something to bowl at. But the series is truly alive now, and India know it.

Mohammed Shami runs in to bowl (Getty Images)

So what went wrong this time? Well, it was a variation on a common theme, one in which England again showed a fundamental misreading of the conditions, and an inability to think on their feet. If they were too adventurous at Trent Bridge, a seaming surface that demanded discipline, then they were too tentative here, with the ball swinging around but the wicket essentially good for batting and conducive to strokeplay – as you suspect India’s batsmen are about to demonstrate.

Only when Curran and Moeen Ali returned India’s fire, putting on 81 for the seventh wicket, did England begin to look remotely comfortable. Up to that point India – unchanged for the first time under Virat Kohli’s captaincy – had been utterly rampant. Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma were immaculate with the new ball, getting first into England’s heads and then through their defences. Bumrah’s eight-over opening burst, in which he displayed a hitherto uncaptured ability to move the ball into the left-hander, was particularly special.

You could tell that much from Keaton Jennings’s expression. He had just padded up to a ball pitching on leg-stump but, like most of Bumrah’s stock deliveries, poised to shape away. Instead, the ball ducked alarmingly into his pads, catching him mid-waddle. A duck for Jennings, and it’s reaching the point where the mere sight of his name on the team-sheet inspires opponents.

The Ageas Bowl on day one of the fourth Test (Getty Images)

Not that Jennings was alone in his chagrin, by any means. Joe Root was trapped LBW by Bumrah off a no-ball, before being trapped in almost identical fashion by Sharma’s entirely legal in-swinger. New No4 Jonny Bairstow paid for a fiddle outside off-stump. Alastair Cook late cut to third slip, having done the hard work. England limped to lunch on 57-4.

Now Hardik Pandya and Mohammed Shami maintained the pressure that Sharma and Bumrah had created in the first hour. Buttler slashed and edged to third slip, Shami pinned Stokes with the inswinger, and with England six down for under 100, humiliation – and swift humiliation at that – beckoned. That brought in the two returning saviours, and although the ball continued to swing, a more purposeful approach – both in attack and defence – allowed Moeen and Curran to prosper where their team-mates had failed.

It was just the partnership England needed, one abetted by Moeen’s determination to slash at anything vaguely wide, forcing Kohli to spread the field to accommodate him. By the time Moeen finally lost patience, top-edging a sweep off Ravi Ashwin and sending it high into the air, the pair had almost doubled England’s score.

Mohammed Shami celebrates dismissing Jos Buttler (Getty Images)

Sharma returned to extract Adil Rashid with a vicious inswinger that was, nonetheless, missing the stumps. Alas, Root and Stokes had already used up both reviews in a futile attempt to reverse their own LBW decisions. Curran wasn’t quite done yet, sweeping Ashwin over mid-wicket for six to bring up the 200, slashing and swiping like a one-man orchestra on the deck of the Titanic, trying to finish Nearer My God To Thee before the waves swallowed him and reduced him to gurgles.

There was just enough time for India to reduce the deficit to 227 under darkening skies, and with the Ageas Bowl crowd thinning out in pursuit of the venue’s single exit road. Stumps were drawn with seven overs remaining to be bowled, lost forever as a result of the lamentable over rate. For the England supporters in the venue, it wasn’t the only way they were short-changed.