Ashwin had fire in his eyes as India showed guts and class

THERE’S no getting away from the fact that was a disappointing day for England, and the damage was done by the eighthwicket stand between Dhruv Jurel and Kuldeep Yadav.

If England had gone into that third innings with a lead of 100 or more, they would have been able to bat with more freedom. As it was, the advantage had been cut to 46 and when Ravichandran Ashwin then gets Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope in successive balls, it suddenly feels as if the momentum has shifted.

From a position where England had hoped to dictate terms and set up a decider in Dharamshala, they seemed unsure whether to stick or twist — a scenario they themselves have exploited against other teams during the Bazball era. Now the boot was on the other foot.

One thing they might look at in the way they batted was that the players who have done well in this Test — Joe Root, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jurel and Zak Crawley — have all been happy to play spin on the front foot.

I learned a lot during my time at Essex from Keith Fletcher, who preferred to stay on the back foot so that he could counter the bounce on a turning pitch. But this Ranchi surface is very low, and we saw in both innings how Ben Stokes, who was stuck on the crease, fell to deliveries that didn’t get up — although there wasn’t much he could have done about the pearoller first time round.

Crawley, by contrast, has played superbly in this game and used his height to smother the spin. He didn’t give the ball a chance to creep along the ground, because he was using his big reach to get to the pitch.

The one time he didn’t pick the length that well, he stayed back to Yadav and was bowled by sharp turn.

It was just a shame for England that Jonny Bairstow fell so tamely to the first ball after tea. You sensed from his body language before the break that he was in the mood. Another hour of him might have made a difference.

And however hard Ben Foakes fought with the tail, you do wonder if there’s a case for him and Bairstow to swap places in a situation like this, allowing Foakes to bat with a top-order player, as he did so well with Root in the first innings, and Bairstow to use his power game once the lower order are in.

But let’s take nothing away from India, who were superb all day. Rohit Sharma got it spot on when he opened the bowling with Ravichandran Ashwin, after delaying his entry for too long in the first innings at Rajkot. That allowed Duckett, who has struggled against Ashwin, to get off to a flyer, and Rohit wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

People have been saying Ashwin (below) has had a quiet series, but this game has been a reminder that you don’t keep a great cricketer down. Root proved as much in England’s first innings. You could see the fire in Ashwin’s eyes when Rohit gave him the new ball: he was determined to stamp his class on the series. He even treated us to a carrom ball to dismiss Foakes.

That’s what impresses me about this Indian team. You can have all the talent in the world but unless you have that deep competitive instinct, that will to win, you risk coming up short. But even without the aggression of Virat Kohli and the class of Jasprit Bumrah, you can tell how much they wanted it.

Rohit cares deeply, even if he doesn’t always show it in the same way as Kohli, and on the third day India showed their character. That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed most in this series, from both sides: there has been a lot of character on show, and it has made for gripping cricket.