If you want to understand how far down the trenches India fell on Day 3 in Guwahati, go back to the one moment in the 82nd over of their innings in the final session. Kuldeep Yadav pushed a Marco Jansen delivery to deep backward point and turned down a single, keeping Jasprit Bumrah at the non-striker's end.

There was a touch of tragicomedy to it. India's No. 9 farming strike from the No. 10 on what should've been the team's big batting day. Two balls later he nicked off and walked back, to muted applause and a tap on the helmet from Mohammed Siraj. He'd batted out 134 deliveries for 19 runs. That's 22.2 overs for 19 runs. This is no slight on Kuldeep, but an indictment of India's messy approach through the middle that has now left them in an almost-unwinnable position.

Test cricket has always been framed as a game of attrition. But time has offered a chance at evolution, and different routes have been mapped out along the way. Myths have been debunked and new bold methods have been embraced. Just two days ago in Perth, Travis Head felt the need to play like he did. England have been doing it for more than a year now, and continue to do so despite middling results.

It's a school of thought that perhaps, resonates with Rishabh Pant too. But a batting ideology bereft of context can sometimes be rendered meaningless. In the second over after Tea, Marco Jansen fired a bumper at the Indian captain, who comfortably ducked under it. Temba Bavuma then saw an opportunity to inflame the ego of his opposite number. He moved Tony de Zorzi from slip and got him under the lid at forward short leg. This was like saying to Pant - look out, more of the same is coming.

Before we get to what happened on the next ball, here's a bit of context for that moment. For 17 minutes leading up to the Tea break, India suddenly relinquished all the good progress that Yashasvi Jaiswal made for them with a 97-ball 58. It started with his exit, when a ball from Simon Harmer stopped on the wicket and bounced more than Jaiswal anticipated, forcing him to check his drive. The ball flew off the outside edge to Marco Jansen at short third.

Not for the first time in this series, a hit-me ball from Harmer then came with a wicket to it. In Kolkata, it was Dhurv Jurel, in Guwahati, Sai Sudharsan. The left-hander pulled it to Ryan Rickelton at mid-wicket.

Jurel's idea wasn't wrong at Eden Gardens when he tried to smash a long-hop from Harmer over deep square leg, but what he did in Guwahati - a tame, miscued pull against a Jansen short ball well outside the off-stump, was the opposite. Just like that, India lost three wickets for seven runs in 20 deliveries heading to a break.

Which now brings us to Pant's response to this mounting pressure. For long, the wicketkeeper-batter has sworn by 'hitting back at the opposition' and has succeeded all around the world with that mantra. He's also one of India's biggest match-winners in this format batting this way. But the gamestate should have sat heavily on his shoulders, also burdened with captaincy here, when he got ready to face another Jansen bouncer. He still chose to step out and swing at the ball across the line to edge it behind.

It's not breaking news that Pant's game is full of low-percentage shots, and a lot of times you don't blame him for trying them. But this was not one of those days. A little bit of restraint, however uncharacteristic, could've given him a chance of going one-v-one against lesser bowlers in South Africa's attack. Even if Simon Harmer bowled a long spell from one end, Bavuma would've been forced to give his main pacer a break soon. Jansen bowled three overs before Tea, and would've perhaps gone on for three or four more in search of a breakthrough before being replaced. But Pant gave Bavuma a reason to push his pacer, and the cascading effect of that was two more wickets - and both off short balls.

Nitish Reddy couldn't keep away from one fired at his body and gloved it while Ravindra Jadeja expected one to rise higher and turned away, only for it to hit his shoulder and then ricochet off his bat. You could offer Jadeja some leeway for the ill-luck in this particular dismissal, but Nitish's awkward fending opens up a bigger question about India's squad planning. Is there a real need for a severely under-bowled seam-bowling all-rounder in Indian conditions, where a specialist batter could fit in better?

At the end of the day, Jansen revealed that repeatedly going short wasn't a specific plan he attacked the day with. It instead worked itself into his bowling ideas in conditions where the ball wasn't nipping around like it did in Kolkata. Jansen bowled 19.5 overs in the innings - 10.2 of those were short-pitched deliveries where he eked out a false shot percentage of 26.2 and picked all of his six wickets for just 19 runs.

As Washington Sundar - in at No.8 in this game, and Kuldeep batted time, it became clear that there were no demons on this pitch, and the softer ball didn't turn as sharply or at pace either. "Honestly, it is a true wicket. If you spend time there, runs are for the taking," Washington offered after a sobering day for the home side. There was light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel for the batters here. India just didn't show the patience to find their way across and see it.