Misfiring engine room must spark into life if England are to recover

THE gambling man's banker of the day sailed in not when Mark Wood's dismissal confirmed England's 434-run mauling in Rajkot yesterday, but when Ben Stokes spoke soon afterwards.

- Malik Ouzia

"At 2-1 down in the series, we've still got two games left," the beaten captain said. "So, we've got a great chance to come home with the trophy at 3-2." At two down in last summer's Ashes, Stokes had offered something similarly optimistic, and almost prophetic, too, his team's comeback scuppered by Manchester rain.

For England to have even a sniff of a turnaround this time, though, their middle-order engine must finally whirr into life. Coming into this series, there was a theory that it would be England's top three that would go a long way to deciding whether the contest with a dominant home side was even competitive.

None had much of a record in India to fall back on: Ben Duckett a doomed tour in 2016, when a mid-series axing would not be reversed for six years; and Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley the 2021 edition, when the former's best score was 34 and the latter averaged 17.