England Rooting for dry run to end

As far-fetched as some of Joe Root's dismissals in this series is the statistic that he has bowled more overs than he has scored runs over the past month in India. You wouldn't expect someone who averaged 50.1 in India before this tour to endure such a wretched run where six innings have yielded 77 runs at an average of 12.83.

- Vivek Krishnan

For context, only Rehan Ahmed, Mark Wood, James Anderson and Shoaib Bashir have scored fewer runs for the visitors. The saving grace is his numbers as an off-spinner: seven wickets in 107 overs while showing enough control to complement Tom Hartley in the absence of Jack Leach.

That's not what Root is there for though. His primary job, as the lynchpin of the England batting unit, is to make plenty of runs at No.4. If he hasn't done that yet in this series, he has largely himself to blame.

Unlike the 2021 series where the ball spun spitefully in three of the four Tests-a consequence of Root making a double ton on a flat pitch in the first game to lead England to a 227-run win-the contests this year have been played on broadly batting-friendly tracks. Seven centuries and totals of 350-plus in at least one innings of each Test bear testimony to Root spurning more than one opportunity for a big score in the series.