3 primary reasons why India lost the series to England

Poor Strategical Decision Making

Playing Pandya seems to disturb the balance of the playing XI rather than enhance it

Ever since Kohli became captain, he seemed married to the idea of playing 5 bowlers in every Test. There is no question that the seam attack has blossomed under Kohli's captaincy, but the balance of the playing XI has taken a hit.

The Indian batting line up has become very shallow. If any team gets past Rahane, that is picks up 5 wickets, they are effectively into the Indian tail. The so-called all-rounders - be it the allrounders who bowl - Pandya, or the keeping all-rounders- be it Parthiv Patel or Dinesh Karthik or Rishabh Pant, have not delivered.

The question must be asked whether India need to play 5 bowlers, even on very bowler friendly pitches. Are 4 high-quality bowlers not enough for such wickets?

On seaming wickets like England, losing wickets to the new ball is the norm, and if 2 early wickets fall, then that leaves India playing with effectively just 3 batsmen.

As it is the batsmen tend to struggle overseas and that India only effectively play 3 batsmen to begin with, really compounds the batting issues.

Must Hardik Pandya be such a regular feature in every Test? The Indian team seem unsure of exactly how to use him.

Perhaps India could look to play Pandya on really green tops and drop one of Ishant or Shami. With a lot of help from the pitch, Pandya could deliver the wickets, and India could play an extra batsman in place of the one bowler they left out, while also leaving open the possibility for Pandya to deliver some runs on a difficult wicket lower down the order.

On wickets that don't offer a lot of help to the bowlers, Pandya doesn't really seem to fit in any role. He doesn't have enough to pick up a lot of wickets, neither does he seem to have enough to score a lot of runs on such wickets. In such cases perhaps it would be best to leave out Pandya and play an extra batsman in his place and play the best Indian seam bowlers.

Either alternative would provide more balance to the team, but the current approach of Kohli and the team management to doggedly play Pandya in every Test, seems to be hurting the balance of the team, and leaving the Indian batting too shallow.

Additionally, the approach of the team management seems to be reactive rather than pro-active in so far as playing combinations goes. India missed a trick by not playing the 2nd spinner in the 1st Test of the England vs India series, and having committed that mistake, they played the 2nd spinner at Lord's where the conditions were not at all helpful to spinners.

Posted this during the 2nd test. Sure enough Kohli never got back to a 2nd spinner, even though on the 4th test dry WKT, surely Jadeja shd hv been picked over Pandya.Ind's problems hv as much to do w/ strategy as quality.#ENGvINDhttps://t.co/83THKOtwQh

— LayEggBeforeWicket (@LayEgg_B4_Wkt) September 2, 2018

I had posted this tweet during the 2nd Test at Lord's and sure enough, in the 4th Test when the pitch was dry and India should have played 2 spinners the team management stuck with only 1 spinner, because when they tried the 2 spinners approach earlier, it had not paid off.

This kind of a confused, chasing the tail, approach to team selection also hurts India's chances overseas. It is very easy to be wise in hindsight, but on a dry wicket like the one used in the 4th Test, surely Jadeja should have played ahead of Pandya.

He brings at least as much to the table with the bat, as Pandya, and would have been a handful with the ball, especially in England's second innings. At the very least it would not be incorrect to say that he would have found the pitch in the 4th Test far more in tune with his skill sets as a bowler than Hardik Pandya did.

Such strategical gaffes have as much to do with India's failure to win this series as the lack of quality in the batting line up.

Another aspect to look at is why attacking batsmen like Pandya and Pant seem to be curbing their natural game and relying overwhelmingly on the weaker of the two aspects of batting - defense.

For instance, Hardik Pandya got out in the 2nd innings trying to defend a short pitched delivery. In white ball cricket he would have been trying to pull that same delivery over mid wicket for a six. At the very least he would have played an attacking shot to that delivery.

Instead, just because, it is red ball cricket, he was trying to defend that delivery, which is not his strength. Hardik Pandya the batsman is not known for his great defense. As a batsman you cannot just toss out the aspect that is your strength, attack, and then hope that the aspect that you are weak at, defense, will help you play long innings against a high class bowling line up.

Take a look at how Curran played, he backed himself to play his natural attacking game, and didn't curb his instincts at all. Of course depending on the merit of the ball he did defend deliveries, but his natural instinct to attack was ever present.

The same couldn't be said of Pandya for much of the series and even Pant played a highly uncharacteristic 0 of 29 balls in the first innings. Pant was his own self later in the 2nd innings, but Pandya for much of the series has tried to bat like someone else.

If Pandya has to get out for low scores, I would prefer he get out playing his natural game, like Pant in the 2nd innings, than get out looking to defend every ball and pretending to possess the defensive abilities of a Rahul Dravid.

By playing such a game, he greatly limits his effectiveness as a batsman. However, the issue is why hasn't the team management been guiding the players on these basic aspects.