England's overreliance on swing and seam highlighted as India hold them at arm's length

SIMON HUGHES AT THE KIA OVAL: England's four-man pace attack was blunted by a classy India line-up but more importantly in benign conditions meaning there is cause for concern ahead of facing Australia

Scorecard

The Kia Oval (third day of five): India 191 & 270-3, England 290 - India lead by 171 runs with seven second-innings wickets remaining

The beauty of Test cricket is that you can only field 11 players. You can’t sub people on and off (as in football and rugby) when the situation changes. You have to stick with those same team for five days.

And the situation will change, as it has in this Test. England’s tall right-arm, four-pronged seam attack was ideal on the first day as they utilised helpful conditions – a pitch with a tinge of green and cool weather - to bowl India out for 191. The bowlers shared the wickets and were all ideal for the circumstances. There was no respite for the Indians.

But that four-man attack - all four between 6ft 2in and 6ft 4in, right arm and around 82mph - looked more limited when the Indian batsmen applied themselves in more benign conditions and no swing on the third day.

Jimmy Anderson, all 39 years of him, actually bowled the fastest ball of the day (86.7mph). The Indians had some luck and came through an excellent probing spell from Chris Woakes in the morning.

How England must have wished they could have substituted Craig Overton (or Ollie Robinson) for Mark Wood to come charging in from the Pavilion End and whistle a few around Rohit Sharma’s earholes after lunch. Remember it was Wood who drew Sharma into a false hook at Lord’s, albeit after being deposited for six over deep square leg.

Similarly, Virat Kohli would have loved to have been able to bring on the controlled and menacing Mohammed Shami during the lively stand between Woakes and Moeen Ali that put Shardul Thakur and Umesh Yadav’s bowling to the sword on the second day. Or he could have had the option of Ravichandran Ashwin.

India were fortunate that Moeen got a bit carried away with his reputation as decimator of left-arm spinners and slogged Raviandra Jadeja up in the air, just when England were threatening a total of 350.

The question now is will Kohli rue not picking Ashwin to exploit a fourth innings pitch?

^{It took a mistake to give England a foothold on day three}

The Indian faster bowlers were looking less threatening in the evening session on Friday and Jasprit Bumrah in particular has carried a heavy responsibility. He was down on pace and cramping up as the shadows lengthened. He will be relieved that he hasn’t had to bowl today, but often 24 hours after a long spell, you feel even stiffer. They will need him at his sharpest if India are to force victory here.

Partly by accident England’s team has improved with every Test in this series. The batting looks much stronger with Dawid Malan at three and Pope and Bairstow at five and six and the bowling attack for this match (Woakes for Sam Curran) was superior to the one at Headingley.

But assumptions that this combination could work for the Ashes are premature. They do rely too much on assistance in the pitch and from the Dukes ball, neither of which will be forthcoming in Australia.

The health and fitness of Wood is of vital importance. And Ollie Robinson must get fitter. He looked a little stiff and sluggish today, for the first time in the series. He should be tapping Anderson up for any physical, mental and nutritional advice, forthwith. Or campaign for substitutions in Tests.