Never forget leg day? India should

'Never forget leg day.'

It's an adage fitness trainers swear by. On Thursday at Old Trafford, India had a 'leg day' they'll do well to forget.

It was a face - Shubman Gill's - that told the story though. In the 22nd over of England's innings, Jasprit Bumrah finally appeared to have found a patch. Three balls in the channel, all to Duckett, all full of menace. Two of them straightened from around the wicket and zipped past Duckett's defence. For the first time in a while, India looked like they might be drawing a shape of control. Slip fielders clapped their way during the changeover.

And then they fell silent again.

It was up to Shardul Thakur to deliver the follow-up. Gill gave him a 7-2 field, stacked on the off side, a formation that screamed control. But Thakur's radar veered wildly. The second ball of that 23rd over drifted harmlessly towards Zak Crawley's pads, and he simply tickled it for four. Seven men stood to attention on one side of the pitch and watched the ball roll away on the other. The captain at first slip, arms now crossed, was one of them.

That moment captured something larger: India, for the first time, on the 17th day of the series, were drifting. Quite literally. Every now and then a ball veered towards the leg-side, as if caught in some unseen current. Not just Thakur. Even Bumrah, India's embodiment of precision, missed his early. At the start of his innings, Duckett was fed like he was owed. He had 33 from 30 with six fours, each of them hit to the leg side. He would argue there should've been one through mid-off, but that was generously stopped by his slow-to-react opening partner.

In the 14-over period before Tea, England had whittled 77 runs of the deficit, scoring at 5.5 without ever trying to.

India will know they had some cause to grumble. The ball had swung nearly 1.6 degrees in the morning when they batted, more than at any point this series. That number doesn't capture just how tough batting looked when India painstakingly cobbled together runs. It had been overcast and nippy. England had the second new ball hooping around corners; Jofra Archer in particular was repeatedly getting it to bend from beyond Washington Sundar's blindspot and beating him on the outside edge.

But conditions are part of cricket's cruel lottery. And while India endured the first session, they squandered the second. The sun poked through just as the new ball was handed over to Gill. This one swung less - 1.1 degrees on average - but in search of it, India's discipline melted. "I think the [new ball] bowlers were trying to find some swing in the hope that, or probably I would say the way we saw there was some swing and seam in the morning, we hoped that it will do for us also but it didn't happen and probably that's what I would say [we drifted down the pads]," Thakur said post the day's play.

"With the new ball we could have been better and after that, yes we were trying to hold it back like I said, but runs kept flowing. It wasn't difficult for bowlers, I would say. We could have had much more patience in terms of bowling the channel, which we didn't."

It was a misstep which, if anything, only served to highlight how good they've been with their disciplines for a lot of years now. Curiously enough, two of England's most attacking batters didn't even need to attack: their job was just to collect. Tick the score over. Nudge India's rhythm just far enough off axis until the lines blurred completely.

Bumrah's spell before Tea from the Brian Statham End underlined India's waywardness: 26.6% of his deliveries were down the leg side - uncharacteristically loose. After the break, he requested a switch to the James Anderson End and instantly course-corrected. His lines sharpened. Just 8% of his deliveries in the next two spells strayed down leg. As per Cricviz, 15% of Bumrah and Siraj's deliveries on Day 2 were on the leg-stump while those numbers for Anshul Kamboj and Thakur were 11.2 and 13.3 respectively.

Duckett & Crawley vs India's pacers on Day 2

It was also a big learning day for the new captain himself. His call to begin with debutant Kamboj alongside Bumrah will come under scrutiny. But it wasn't misplaced. One, it threw the youngster into the contest straightaway. Two, splitting Bumrah and Siraj ensured spread of experience across spells. Again, Gill was choosing control over combustion, a choice he likes when picking finger spinner over a wrist spinner.

But what stood out more than any tactical call was the absence of his presence. With Karun Nair not playing, Gill was stationed at first slip in the rejigged cordon, not mid-off or mid-on, where captains live and breathe the game. From slip, he had only gestures to offer to the bowler at the other end. And increasingly, those turned to shrugs. Then again, there's only so much a captain can do without being able to set fields for bad balls.

With Rishabh Pant injured and off the field, Gill didn't have his usual sounding board either, someone shrewd in slowing the pace down. KL Rahul took charge later in the final session, but by then the runs had come and the lines had scattered. At one point, Gill found himself isolated at backward point. He also hadn't considered the Washington option with the ball and continued to remain unsure of how to fit Thakur in his bowling puzzle.

This wasn't an England blitz he had no answer to. Think back to Day 2 of the Rajkot Test between these two sides last year when Duckett helped England race to 207/2 in 35 overs. There, R Ashwin said he was ok with the outcome because England had to take a lot of risks to get there. The risky business didn't pay off the next morning, and India clawed back a lead.

The Old Trafford situation ought to be more worrying: England barely needed to do anything extraordinary to cut the deficit to 133.

It was, quietly and surely, a loss of control. After all, in the first three Tests, India had outbowled England with the new ball. Even in defeats, they'd found ways to push England into corners. But here, as conditions switched and little mistakes piled up, they were simply outmanoeuvred by their own looseness.

India's bowlers will return on Day 3 hoping for more help from the elements. But the ball they have will be 46 overs old. A lead of 133 is still significant, big enough to keep fighting for. But in Test cricket, worry lines don't just show up on the faces. They start at the crease. And they spread.