England take wrong turn against spin

This was the day the bailiffs arrived for England. It wasn't that their performance on day three was especially poor. It was more that they were paying for debts incurred earlier in the game.

From the moment they failed to take advantage of winning the toss, from the moment they failed to score 450 in their first innings, from the moment they lost four wickets in the opening session of the match, they have been up against it. The evening session of the third day was the time the pressure told and England snapped. It felt like the tipping point of the game; it may well prove to be the tipping point of the series.

England looked dispirited long before their second innings began. Maybe it was the injury to Haseeb Hameed, who may well be out of the series, maybe it was the way the India tail wagged - at 204 for 6 England were thinking of a first-innings lead; at 400 for 8 that was a painful memory - or maybe it was the realisation that they had squandered a great opportunity in this match, but England looked disappointed before the end of India's innings.

It showed in the fielding first. Alastair Cook, his mind clouded, dropped a relatively straightforward chance at slip - something that is happening too frequently to be dismissed as an aberration - and Jonny Bairstow missed one going to his right. It meant England had dropped four chances in total in India's first innings.

England's bowlers had, as usual, performed respectably. Perhaps James Anderson looked a little flat and perhaps Stuart Broad was missed more than anticipated, but conceding 400 on this surface was not unreasonable. It was probably a par first-innings total from India.

It was only by contrast with India's spinners that England's paled. For while Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid are liable to offer a long hop or full toss every spell, R Ashwin, Jayant Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja are unlikely to offer one an innings. And while Moeen and Rashid are both capable of deliveries that turn sharply, they are less able to maintain and build pressure than their India counterparts.

Taken in isolation, Ashwin's wicket-taking deliveries look pretty innocuous. Take the ball that bowled Cook through the gate: it was 46 mph and turned fractionally. It was the sort of ball that, if bowled on the village green, might well have been heaved into the churchyard.

But with Ashwin - and India's other spinners - it's not necessarily the delivery that does the damage. It's the spell.

So in 30 overs of England's second innings, India's three spinners only conceded two boundaries. And in those 30 overs, 80% of their deliveries were dot balls and more than 50% of those from Ashwin and Jadeja would have hit the stumps. By contrast, 26% of Rashid's would have done so. While only 1% of the deliveries sent down by India's spinners went for boundaries, the figure was 4% for England's.

All this means the batsmen have no respite against India. And it means that any turn at all - and Jadeja and Jayant actually gained less turn than in the first innings - becomes dangerous and the delivery that goes straight on can be just as lethal. Every ball counts. Every ball adds to the ordeal. Batting is exhausting.

It's particularly exhausting when the match situation is so unpromising. So Cook, struggling throughout a torturous innings, had been lunging forward in an attempt to nullify the spin but finally left just enough of a gap between pad and bat for Ashwin to squeeze the ball through. A slight miscalculation, a slight misjudgement, a slight error: you cannot afford any of them against bowlers of such accuracy.

Moeen's dismissal looked especially horrid. Beaten in the flight, he was nowhere near the pitch of the ball when he skipped down the pitch in an attempt to lift Ashwin back over his head. Instead, the ball hit high up the bat and Moeen popped a simple catch to mid-on.

Again, taken in isolation, it looked an unnecessary shot. But it was a reflection of the demanding spell Moeen had faced. It was a reflection of his lack of confidence in his own defence and a reflection of his unease at the crease. It was an unimpressive first effort at No. 3 - Moeen has now batted in every position up to and including No. 9 in Tests - but also reflection of some fine, disciplined bowling as much as it was poor batting.

And, for all the talk of Stokes' improvement against spin, the talk of him playing further forward and further back, he was punished here for failing to get far enough forward. It was a fine ball, certainly, but it was the stroke of a tired, disappointed man.

Only Bairstow, who was brilliantly caught after edging one that kept low, could consider himself unfortunate. But even he might have left the delivery angled across him.

It seems likely that Hameed will bat on day four. But it may well prove to be his last action of the tour. Judging by previous examples - Anderson's injury in South Africa springs to mind - the secrecy surrounding Hameed's finger problem suggests that the England camp know full well it is serious. It seems odd that he has not had an X-ray already; it will be a surprise if England do not have a new opening partnership in Mumbai.

All of which leaves England facing a monumental challenge. But, more than trying to find a way to combat the spin, they need to find a way to combat the impression that they have come up against a side that is too good for them. For the first time in several years - probably since the 2013-14 Ashes - that is how England looked for the last few hours here. They will have to dig deep, mentally as much as physically, if they are to salvage anything from this series.