RANCHI: It was just the third ball of the day. Mohammed Siraj, running in, pitched a back of a length delivery. What happened after, made everyone sit up and take notice. The ball kicked off and bounced up to Zak Crawley’s neck. As he awkwardly defended the delivery, it brought up the conversation of the Ranchi surface to front and centre.

From the looks of it, there seemed to be seam movement early on, with variable bounce from at least one end. Sensing that he is not going to survive long defending, Crawley, who had already survived a clean bowled off a no ball from Akash Deep, tried to hit Siraj out of the attack. Two flicks to the ropes were followed by a tonk over wide long-on. 37/0 in seven overs — England and Bazball up and running. At least everyone thought so until Akash Deep ran through the visiting top-order, reducing England to 57 for three in 12 overs.

The onus was now on two senior batters who were not amongst runs — Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow. While the latter took to hit or defend — trying to smash his way into form — Root stuck to the basics. He played with a straight bat, left, defended and worked the ball around despite the drift and the bounce — or the lack of it at times. Bairstow took on Siraj, R Ashwin, and Ravindra Jadeja and it seemed like England were back on track, scoring at five runs an over. That is when Ashwin trapped Bairstow and all hell broke loose. Jadeja snuck one in – it kept so low that Ben Stokes did not even wait for the spinner to appeal and started walking back as soon as the ball hit the pads.