As MS Dhoni’s hometown Ranchi gears up to host its third Test match, the Indian think-tank is banking on the “balance” of their versatile squad and on a surface with “enough cracks” to hand England its first series defeat in the so-called Bazball era.

Going into the fourth Test of this ongoing five-match series, the English camp have already raised a few eyebrows looking at the 22 yards of the JSCA Stadium here. The pitch seems to have a few cracks running down one side, just outside a right-hander’s off-stump at one end and a left-hander’s off-stump at the other. When asked about it at the match-eve press conference, England skipper Ben Stokes said, “I’ve never seen something like that before. I don’t know what could happen. If you looked down one side of opposite ends it just looked different to what I am used to seeing, especially out in India. It looked green and grassy up in the changing rooms, but when you go out there it looked different—very dark and crumbly and quite a few cracks in it.”