India's bowlers salvage success after slapstick

Mohali offered box-office material on Saturday and here's hoping enough fans of Charlie Chaplin were watching.

It began with Ravindra Jadeja, his body the shape of a slanted A and his mouth a pronounced O as an edge off Alastair Cook whooshed past. What a gag. One of India's best fielders had missed an honest-to-goodness catch.

Then R Ashwin got punked everywhere he went. At short midwicket, he made a silly by dropping a dolly. At mid-on, he misfielded so badly Virat Kohli almost facepalmed. At square leg, in the final hour of the day and just as he thought he had the ball covered, it bounced awkwardly and nearly broke a tooth.

The most comedic incident, though, at least as far as the press box was concerned, was the toss. Heads craned as the coin went up, then they were thrown back in laughter as Cook promptly chose to bat. Before the first hour was done, he had been given two lives. None of this sounds like a day that ends with India taking eight wickets, does it?

Clearly the bowlers deserve a lot of credit for this turn - only the metaphorical kind was on offer despite fears otherwise - of events. They never let England run away with the game.

Mohammed Shami had two chances put down in his first spell. He was asked to create a third by his captain 10 minutes before lunch. He bounced Moeen Ali out.

From swapping out the spinner for a quick to the setting of a leg-side trap, that wicket was the culmination of a plan coming together. India had a short leg in place. They had also kept a man about 10 yards inside the boundary at fine leg specifically for the top-edge. Normally on such pitches - slow with not much bounce - that man would be positioned squarer to control the runs. Kohli was gambling. Shami was his ace in the hole.

The ball was fast, it rose up towards Moeen's head, triggered the instinct to hook and subdued the good sense that would have told the batsman he was trying to drag it from outside the off stump and, as such, his timing would be off. Having gone through a horrible first hour - and that doesn't take into account India losing their first-choice opener KL Rahul to injury again - that was a moment of pure joy. Kohli actually skipped over to the catcher M Vijay to share high-fives.

With seven balls to stumps, Umesh Yadav finally convinced an outswinger to overcome its shyness and go hug Chris Woakes' off stump. Umesh had been warned for following through on the danger area in his fourth over. Going wider of the stumps eventually helped him trouble the England batsmen more because the right-handers felt they had to play most of his deliveries with the angle into them. After that, it was only a matter of being accurate because he was finding sideways movement - both conventional and reverse.

"I am improving day by day with the matches that I am playing," Umesh said. "I talk to my coaches Anil bhai [Kumble] and Sanjay bhai [Bangar]. Pace comes with a disadvantage. If you don't pitch it right, you will go for runs. They advise me to bowl in one particular area. My impact area is outside the off stump from where I can bowl my outswingers and make the batsmen play a lot more.

"It's a bit cold and there's some moisture in the wicket. The ball is moving. It's not that if the wicket is flat the new ball wont swing. New ball will swing if you have faith. Me and Shami know that we can swing it till the ball is new. We are trying to bowl outside off stump channel from where we were getting our outswingers. There is good carry in the pitch also at good pace."

India's spinners weren't lagging behind either. Jadeja's two wickets were the combination of a tried and tested method - strangling the batsman for runs - enhanced by a new skill: drawing them out of their crease. To accomplish that, a man who has thrived by firing darts at the stumps, bringing bowled and lbw into play, had to deceive his opponents with flight.

Jadeja bowled 31 deliveries to Ben Stokes. Twenty-eight of them were dots. Sensing the batsman would be looking for a big shot, he held one back and since he had also tossed it up and put in a lot of work with his action, it drifted away too. Stokes had premeditated his charge, was tricked into driving inside the line and then stumped. This sequence - apart from being a delight to watch - tested the theory that batsmen find it easier to score against the ball turning into them.

Ashwin redeemed himself, taking a wicket off his first ball and could well have had England's top-scorer Jonny Bairstow caught behind for 54. India's premier spinner may not have been ripping it from one corner to another, but his variations of pace and trajectory were beautiful. When Buttler was new at the crease, playing only his second first-class match since being dropped from the Test side in October 2015, Ashwin fed him a few flatter deliveries to push him back before an offbreak with a considerable amount of overspin came along. The batsman, to his credit, managed to adjust to the extra bounce and pat it down with soft hands. Buttler should have done the same against Jadeja in the 69th over. He couldn't and England's biggest partnership of the innings - 69 runs for the sixth wicket - was rather tamely broken.

Jayant Yadav was the least accurate among India's bowlers, but it was he who showcased how difficult this pitch could become. Drier at the full and good-length areas, where some crumbling has already happened, it encouraged one ball to go on with the arm to take Bairstow's outside edge as he defended inside the line. The next one gripped the deck more and turned sharply to beat the inside edge and pin the right-hander lbw.

With India being good, bad and ugly all in one day, the Kohli cam had plenty of work to do. He glared. He fumed. He screamed. He wrung his hands in disgust one minute, high-fived with glee the next. However, after stumps, he was simply a man content. At least until 9.30am on Sunday, when the show would start all over again.