India's battle is with themselves

Rahul Dravid is at first slip. Waiting.

It's been 27 overs since the last wicket fell. The crowd might have been anxious, except most of them had chosen to skip the Eden Gardens and head over to the university ground in Jadhavpur.

Sourav Ganguly was playing a Ranji Trophy game there.

West Indies have just gone past 400 with Darren Bravo doing such a fine impression of his idol Brian Lara that at this very minute they were both on the same exact score after 12 games.

It's Kolkata. It's a follow-on innings. It's tantalising.

Dravid is at slip. No longer waiting. He moves to his right, smoother than any one-liner I could think of to include here, and he takes the catch.

Bravo is gone for 136. West Indies collapse. Fun's over.

This is November 2011, the last time India had to indulge in a home Test with neither Virat Kohli nor Ravindra Jadeja. They really are up against it this time.

Only two of the top six have even 20 matches' worth of experience under their belt and they have to go out onto what is likely to be another spin-friendly pitch and find some way to score enough runs that even England are unable to catch up.

Ben Stokes doesn't miss a lot of things but he seems to have this time. Shubman Gill is at the crease and there is no short midwicket. Joe Root had to step in and remind his captain that a key part of their plan was missing.

Touch players can find it difficult on pitches that aren't true in terms of pace and bounce. They'll hit these amazing shots only for the ball to end up in the hands of a fielder, often in an orthodox position. They are easily contained. The events in Hyderabad proved this.

Where someone like KL Rahul, who is meticulous with his footwork - moving forward, back and even sideways - and his wristwork was able to find the gaps and keep the scoreboard ticking, Gill was just plonking his front leg out and then reaching out even further to play with bat in front of pad. That's a classic sign of a batter defending with hard hands.

"He has to maybe play a little softer," Sanjay Manjrekar said in a new video series on ESPNcricinfo called Zoomed In. "Just get a feel of maybe playing the spinners and when getting onto the front foot, maybe look for ones and twos and of course a back-foot play that he has to incorporate."

Gill had asked to be India's No. 3, taking over from a man who used to demand bowlers to send down the very best that they had if they wanted to tear him away from the crease, but is yet to display the kind of competence required for the role. Ten of his last 11 innings have tallied less than 35 runs. Former India captain and coach Anil Kumble has questioned the team management over the handling of Gill, telling the host broadcaster that "he has been given the cushion perhaps even a Cheteshwar Pujara didn't get."

Shreyas Iyer is another long-term investment that is causing India some short-term discomfort. Since the innings that made him - a rough-and-tumble 87 on a Mirpur dustbowl in December 2022 - he averages 14.55 with a highest score of 35. Spin-hitting is his USP and yet when it mattered most - on that last day in Hyderabad - he practically gift-wrapped his wicket to the injured Jack Leach. Tame forward defensives aren't why he is in this line-up. Had he shown better enterprise, India might have been able to capitalise when the ball got softer and therefore easier to deal with. Instead, he did the one thing a spin-hitter shouldn't do. He followed the turn and got caught at slip. India would much rather if Iyer gets out the way he did in the first innings, looking to smash the ball for six.

Rajat Patidar has made a fifty-plus score in first-class cricket roughly once every three innings. He made one in 2022 that helped Madhya Pradesh win their first-ever Ranji Trophy title. He made one earlier this month, against the England Lions which convinced the Indian team that he was the man to step in when Kohli had to step out for personal reasons.

The challenge for all of these run-machines coming up the ranks in domestic cricket isn't always whether they are capable - because they are - but it is whether they are clear-headed enough in the heat of battle to make decisions that can change the course of a Test match. Even with close to the strongest XI they had, India came undone on Sunday as soon as the loss became a real possibility.

The batters were unwilling to take any risks to throw an unfancied England spin attack off their lengths, which allowed them to settle into their work, build consistency and create wicket-taking opportunities. When people who have been with the set-up were unable to rise to the occasion, imagine how hard it will be for someone from the outside? Someone who may never have another chance like this to prove themselves. India, after all, only have room for five - check that, it's three - batters in their XI because Kohli and Rohit Sharma are already locked in. This is why Sarfaraz Khan - on top of accumulating mountains of runs, including a 160-ball 161 against the Lions last week - needed other things to fall the way they have to finally be called up to the Test side.

There should be a picture of Rohit playing the reverse sweep stuck up on the home dressing room in Visakhapatnam. He was the only batter willing to try something different in order to change the tide of a match that was going away from India. His plate has just got even fuller now. Not only does he have to figure out how to stop England from Bazballing, he'll have to compensate for a team whose heart, liver and kidneys have been ripped out due to circumstances beyond anyone's control.

India's handling of the talent they have available to them has recently hit the headlines for the wrong reasons but all through this tour both Rohit and Dravid have been vocal in their support for the people they've brought on board. They won't see the fact that they're going into a match that they almost have to win with a side short on experience as a downside. They can't. The whole reason they've been developing their bench strength is to ensure that even in times of emergency, they have good options to turn to. Patidar, Sarfaraz, Saurabh Kumar and Washington Sundar have all shown what they're capable of. They just have to do it again with more on the line than they're perhaps used to.