Lost in fragments: How India keep slipping in a series they should be leading

The sight of Ben Stokes and Ravindra Jadeja in a quiet embrace at the end was poignant. Two great all-rounders from either side of the contest, each singularly trying to will his team towards a win on the final day. Between them: bruises, blunted blades, drained expressions.

It wasn't just a hug between rivals. It was an acknowledgement of how much had gone into these five days, and how fine the margins had been.

India lost the Lord's Test by 22 runs. Not quite the 'barest of margins' from that other blockbuster six years ago to the day, but it belonged in the same slow-burn breath. England now lead the five-match series 2-1, each Test dragging into the final session on the fifth day. That's how close it has been. But it's the scoreline that will rankle India. Because in another version of this series, they could have been 2-1, or even 3-0 up.

By the numbers, it makes even less sense. India have scored more runs: 2295 to England's 1945. At a higher average per wicket: 40.98 against 35.36. Hit more hundreds: 8 to 5. Taken the same number of wickets: 55. At a lower average: 36.05 versus 42.60. And claimed more five-wicket hauls: 4 to England's 0.

Even with the unusually big margin of their win in Birmingham, you'd think they should be up on the scorecard. But this isn't a series measured by just maths. It's one that begins to make sense when you connect the dots looking backwards.

As much as this Lord's Test was about the final moments, about weary bodies being urged to make one last play, it wasn't the kind of game India lost through a single plot twist. They began the final day needing 135 runs with six wickets in hand on a wearing, up-and-down pitch. By the end of the session, they were down to 82 for 7 and Marcus Trescothick's light-hearted line about wrapping it up by Lunch suddenly wasn't far off.

Staying on that point, it would've been easy to reach for the old refrain: a few bad minutes of cricket cost us. And while Shubman Gill did reference the last half hour on Day 4 and the first hour today, the real dissection points lie further back. Because on the fifth morning, it wasn't India throwing it away. Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Nitish Reddy, all fell to excellent deliveries. In fact, even Bumrah and Siraj didn't throw it away. This was India getting squeezed because of the positions they had already put themselves in.

The most defining of those "unforced errors," as the Indian captain called it, had come two days ago: Rishabh Pant's run-out for 74 in the first innings on the stroke of Lunch on Day 3. Pant and Rahul had battled through that opening session, absorbing England's bouncer barrage before beginning to hand out punches of their own. Their partnership had touched 141. Then, in the last over before the break, trying to get Rahul on strike to complete his hundred before lunch, Pant was caught short by a Stokes direct hit.

A moment too casual, too eager. Wiping out not just a partnership, but control India had painstakingly built. Gill admitted that it was the defining moment of the game, a slip that cost India an 80-100-run lead. Instead, the scores finished level after the first innings. And from there, India were already behind, batting last on a pitch that, unlike Headingley and Edgbaston, was deteriorating noticeably.

"We talk a lot about this... that we will always keep the team ahead," Gill said about not chasing personal milestones. "But I think it was an error of judgement rather than [a decision] that 'I have to score my 100 now.' I think he [Rahul] must have said that it would be better if I score my 100 before lunch. Because a batsman also feels a little pressure [when having to wait for a milestone]. Obviously, if someone is at 99. But at the end of the day, I won't consider it personal because of his personal milestone. It was an error of judgement because Rishabh made the call after hitting. And the danger end was KL Bhai's. That can happen with any batsman."

In fact, Gill had spoken about responsibility after those twin batting collapses - 7 for 41 and 6 for 31 - at Headingley. He'd even led the way in hunkering down and batting big at Edgbaston. But at Lord's, India began making very different kinds of mistake: casual ones. Small slips in concentration, topped by that run-out.

Later on that third day, Jadeja and Nitish Reddy tempted fate with their running too, but somehow survived, Jadeja long enough to stitch a pair of half-century partnerships before falling to another unforced error, tickling an innocuous delivery down the leg side. India lost their last four wickets for 11 runs.

And if you flash back another day still, India's 387 in the first innings might have given them that 80-run cushion. Because on the second morning, Bumrah produced a sensational burst. England, overnight 251 for 4, suddenly 271 for 7. That should have been eight down, only for Rahul to put down Brydon Carse at second slip.

At that moment, India also changed the ball. It had gone out of shape, so wanting the swap was fair. But the replacement swung 2.6 times less than the ball Gill and Co. had been handed before. A small, unlucky variable. While India now battled the ball situation, Carse and Jamie Smith lifted England from trouble with an 84-run stand for the eighth wicket. Carse, dropped on 5, made 56.

India could just as easily have been handed a ball that did more, and the narrative of Lord's 2025 might have tilted the other way. It's an important factor, because alongside their controllable mistakes, fortune too seemed to tilt away from India at key junctures.

Like during Bumrah's opening spells on the first and fourth days. There have been 60 individual innings of 40 or more balls in this series so far. Among those, Zak Crawley's second innings and Ben Duckett's first innings at Lord's have the highest false-shot percentages: 44.8% and 40% respectively. And yet, they both managed 22 and 23 in those innings, exactly the number that could have tied or won India the game.

That, ultimately, is what will sit with India the longest. This wasn't a match lost in grand collapses or glaring mistakes. It was lost in fragments: a dropped catch here, a mistimed run there, the ball that swung less than expected, a ball that swung too much after the stumps to beat the keeper or a ball that kept beating the bat without finding the edge.

By the numbers, India have done more, in the match and in the series. But in the moments that carry weight, England have landed their punches at just the right time.