Team India were hopeful of a better performance on day 4 after how hard they went on to grind on the previous evening to finish at 215/2. The 139-run deficit began to look like a steeper mountain to climb than it already was after encountering the plans that Anderson and Robinson had in place against them.

It was a bright, sunny day and to give India a bit of a boost before they could face the quicks, literally everyone on the Bird app, who was at the stadium, was uploading the picture of a sun-soaked Headingley, saying that it would be a ‘batting day’ by all means. The approach that India adopted here was much better than the first essay where the outside edge was a little more busier to wrap the innings for a fragile-looking 78. Here, you could see that India wanted to play it safe in the first hour and that was seen in Virat’s approach where he left eight of his first nine deliveries that he faced in the morning, most of it against Anderson.

But, after the dismissal of Pujara, for no runs added to the overnight score it was a downward spiral that India were treading on. Make no mistake, Anderson and Robinson bowled relentlessly in the channel besides the off-stump for which they bore the fruit with the wickets of India’s brittle middle-order. After Pujara, Virat and Rahane were out the game was all but secured for England.

The numbers of the trio of batters, since the beginning of 2020, have been widely discussed to even mention them. The fact that only one hundred has been scored from the three since the year gone by is a tiny indication of their absence amongst the big runs. The duo, Rahane and Pujara, have shown glimpses of brilliance after long gaps in their innings and because those knocks, under trying circumstances, have led to positive results for the team, dropping either of them would result in a 50-50 outcome.

When we talk about Virat not reaching the 71st hundred for almost 2 years now, the common opinion was that it’s just a bad phase in his career and that he will emerge out of it on a good day. He has played a few excellent knocks in this period which have not led to a ton like the ones at Adelaide against Australia in the last year and at Chennai versus England, a few months ago. However, The current tour of England has exposed his technique against the dukes ball, once again after 2014, and to iron out those deficiencies one would need a good amount of time away from competitive cricket.

Rishabh Pant, the saving grace for India on most days, has scored the second-least number of runs amongst the Indian batters and he, as well, succumbs to a very similar mode of dismissal as his previous knocks. He was dismissed by Robinson in both the innings from an over the wicket angle as he edged the respective deliveries to the cordon and interestingly according to Cricviz, before this series began, Pant averaged a commendable 55 (4 dismissals) in his entire career against right-arm pace from over the wicket. But, in this series itself, all 5 of his dismissals have come against deliveries that were bowled by the right-armers from the very same angle i.e. over the wicket. That’s how quickly the swinging delivery in England exposes the loopholes in your batting technique.

The series is now at stake and so is India’s reputation with the bat.