Plenty of starts, but little of substance for under-fed England - Chris Waters

A preferred hatred hereabouts would be for French onion soup, but that is by the by.

The point was that Pope, as with many fine players before him, seems a bag of nervous energy at the start of his innings, a frenetic presence in the No 3 position.

If Pope can get past that initial twitchiness, that early search for runs and rhythm, he can then appear a player transformed, as he showed with his masterly and match-winning hundred against India in the first Test in Hyderabad.

It is not just Pope, however, who has struggled for starts and then, more pertinently, to turn them into consistently sizeable contributions.

Every England batsman in this series has suffered the same problem, one which surfaced again on the opening day of the fifth and final Test in Dharamsala, where it was difficult to discern what was more spectacular - the snow-capped Himalayan backdrop or an England collapse from 100-1 when Pope was dismissed to 218 all-out, the tourists at one point losing 5-8 before India closed on 135-1.

Having won the toss on a good batting pitch (and, indeed, having been 175-3 before Jonny Bairstow, playing his 100th Test, was caught behind, one of five victims for left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav), it seemed faintly criminal that England were ejected inside 58 overs.

Once again, there were plenty of starts: Bairstow 29, Ben Duckett 27, Joe Root 26, Ben Foakes 24 but only Zak Crawley (79) went on to reach fifty, his series the epitome of starts with no sizeable contributions: 20, 31, 76, 73, 15, 11, 42, 60 and now this latest effort.

Pope’s departure, on the stroke of lunch, running down the wicket to Kuldeep, missing his googly and being stumped by some distance, was pivotal, shifting the momentum towards the hosts.

The Surrey man does not seem a confident player of high-class spin - less so of high-class pace - and he has fallen off a cliff somewhat since that 196, managing only 23, 23, 39, 3, 0, 0 and 11.

There would appear to be a vulnerability at variance with his status as vice-captain - indeed, it might be better if the captain, Ben Stokes, batted at No 3 and Pope was perhaps even given a blow.

That is a debate for another time, although Stokes’s returns on this tour have been little better, not helped by the occasional stinking delivery, his last three innings: 3, 4, 0.

The morning belonged to England though was not without its alarms after they opted to bat first.

The bull swung and seamed and beat the outside edge, but Crawley and Duckett fought through to shape a stand of 64, ended when Duckett simply threw his wicket away by slicing Kuldeep to cover, Shubman Gill running back to take a fine diving catch.

Pope’s dismissal was a poor note on which to end the session, and the afternoon went from bad to worse as the outstanding Kuldeep received good support from Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, India’s trio of spinners sharing all the wickets.

Ashwin took four, his own 100th Test somewhat more enjoyable thus far than that of Bairstow, who was tearful before the start as Root paid glowing tribute in the huddle to which, in a nice touch, Bairstow’s mother, Janet; sister, Becky; partner, Megan, and their baby son, Edward, were invited. Awww...

Surely this would be the day when Crawley, finally, converted a start into a big one in a series in which England found themselves 3-1 down, but Kuldeep spun one back sharply through the gate to beat an attempted cover-drive, then Bairstow’s hopes of marking his century of Tests with a century (in the first innings at least) ended when a Kuldeep googly kissed the outside edge, confirmed once the Yorkshireman reviewed.

When Root and Stokes went lbw and burned the last two reviews in the process, England had lost 3-0 in 13 balls and the engine room of their batting. The exhaust of the vehicle fared little better – Tom Hartley skying to long-on, Mark Wood edging to slip, Ben Foakes playing into his stumps and James Anderson slapping to mid-wicket.

Perhaps a 700th Test wicket for Anderson would cheer up England’s travelling support. It would have to wait, the 41-year-old, who went into the match on 698, sending down four wicket-less overs for as many runs as India turned the screw.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, the young man of the moment, with two double hundreds already in the series, and Rohit Sharma, the captain, shared a century opening stand at around five runs an over.

Jaiswal clubbed Shoaib Bashir, the young spinner, for three sixes in his opening over only for hubris to get the better of him eventually when, after passing fifty, he, like Pope, was comprehensively stumped.

Not even Jaiswal, on this occasion, could cash in on a start.