Chennai: India are all over Bangladesh, as they should be. This is far from their best brand of cricket, but it’s for everyone to see how India’s bare minimum can be still good enough to beat Bangladesh twice over.

A consolidated lead of 308 won’t reveal how creaky the top-order batting has looked, nor will it highlight the rarest event of Ravichandran Ashwin staying wicketless in an innings. But it undoubtedly underlines the inherent competitiveness within India that isn’t shackled by any sense of entitlement at home. Getting the job done is the objective, and India will achieve it by all means possible.

Buoyed by their recent success in Pakistan, Bangladesh were probably hopeful of springing a surprise or two, and they did that too by having India on the mat in the first hour of the opening day. But that India are no Pakistan, or for that matter any other Test nation when it comes to defending a home record as epic as this, was established quickly. “Conditions in Pakistan and the opponent were different. But here we haven’t done well enough,” said Taskin Ahmed, who finished with 3/55.

Quite an understatement considering the way Bangladesh’s batting folded inside 48 overs after their bowlers did a decent job of dismissing the remaining four Indian wickets quickly.

“Had we dismissed them for 250, we would have been playing a different game altogether,” said Ahmed. Turned out to be wishful thinking. The last session on Thursday clearly hadn’t gone well for Bangladesh. And then, when Ravindra Jadeja fell for 86, Bangladesh erred by not bringing on a spinner against Akash Deep.

Typically, pacers fancy their batting chances better against pacers and Bangladesh almost fed the frenzy by making Taskin Ahmed and Hasan Mahmud—not even the tearaway Nahid Rana—bowl at him. It cost them four boundaries as India’s total swelled past 350.

More woes were coming their way as Bangladesh clearly looked out of depth to counter Jasprit Bumrah’s strategy of coming round the wickets after beginning over the wicket to the left-handed openers. Leaving the outswingers when Bumrah was bowling from over the wicket, Shadman Islam was caught napping when he shouldered arms to the one that went straight from round the wicket.

Not just the skill, India’s consistency too was too hot to handle for Bangladesh. Zakir Hasan knows, as would Mominul Haque, both falling to absolute rippers from Akash Deep who kept peppering that good length spot at good pace to beat their inside edge and crash into their stumps. Nahmul Hossain and Mushfiqur Rahim edging to the slip too were disasters waiting to happen.

There was a glimmer of hope emerging when Litton Das and Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh’s best batters, got together and started playing bold drives. But India weren’t flustered by the sudden flurry of boundaries.

A fifty partnership on the board and Bangladesh were slowly giving reasons to believe their comeback from 26/6 in Rawalpindi wasn’t a one-off. That’s when both were overcome by the brainfade of trying to manufacture shots against Jadeja. Litton’s slog-sweep didn’t clear the fielder at deep square leg and two overs later, Shakib tried to reverse-sweep a dipping, straight Jadeja delivery.

Chips down, with not much batting left, Bangladesh still tried to resist. But India were relentless. Especially Bumrah, who didn’t quite like Ahmed managing a wild swing over the slip cordon for a four. He went back to his mark, breezed in and unleashed a short of length delivery pitching outside off and seaming away a bit. Ahmed was beaten. Next ball was shorter and Ahmed left it well. That prompted Bumrah to go for his ribcage, and the physio had to be called. Next over, almost a rerun. Either Bumrah was hitting Ahmed on his glove, or Ahmed was trying to use his body to just stop the ball. Till Bumrah finally had the last laugh, unleashing a yorker that Ahmed was not at all prepared for after the short-ball softening.

Nahid Rana managing a couple of boundaries was a concession India would have happily settled for given the context of the game and how far they had already placed themselves without exerting much. Which also meant Rohit Sharma was under no pressure to preserve his wicket. The India captain clipped the first ball from Hasan Mahmud behind square for an easy boundary and that was that. Yashasvi Jaiswal fell trying to drive Rana’s pace.

And then, Kohli departed after missing a flick off Mehidy Hasan Miraz to be adjudged leg-before even though replays later suggested there was an inside edge. It’s bound to affect Kohli’s already concerning numbers against spin but by no means should it affect India’s consistency at home. Because as a collective, India are used to finding ways to tide over individual inconsistencies.

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