Where isn't Joe Root?

If you have been looking out for Joe Root this series, he's been around. And sometimes at places where he perhaps wasn't even supposed to be. Take the Hyderabad Test for example. Moments after Ollie Pope and his medley of sweeps had ridden roughshod on India on the third evening, it was Root who turned up to front the press. He didn't want to, he'd admit in jest, but he didn't mind getting "big dogged" by the man of the moment. So he ultimately did what Pope asked of him and came over to attend the press conference.

That was where Root admitted how he didn't feel like the "benchmark" of scoring runs in the subcontinent anymore and famously called upon his team to "dream the dream". Less than 24 hours later, England had an unprecedented 1-0 lead, having outspun India with the help of a rookie spinner who was plucked out of first-class circuit and brought on this tour just because he was tall.

Take his lines away and Root's still been under your nose all series. There was of course that dropped catch of Rohit Sharma on the first morning in Rajkot but when he's had the ball in his hand, he has gone beyond what was expected of him. He was comfortably England's best spinner in that first Test in Hyderabad before Tom Hartley's thunder-stealing seven-wicket haul took over. In fact, on the first evening, so conspicuous was Root by his absence that the story of the opening day of the series wasn't so much about England's 246 all out after winning the toss, but about Root not getting a bowl at Yashasvi Jaiswal in a marauding mood. The brouhaha felt legitimate when he picked Jaiswal's wicket with his fourth delivery the next morning. Later in the day, he was even on a hat-trick.

In Visakhapatnam, an injury to his right little finger meant he wasn't able to spin the ball as much as he'd have liked whereas in Rajkot, he fared alright as a part-time spinner on the flattest pitch of the series. There's no doubt that he has offered experience and familiarity in the middle, and made up in part for the absence of Jack Leach. His round-the-wicket angle and canny changes of pace are reminiscent of the bowler who picked 5 for 8 on his last tour here, just that the wicket column is no longer ringing like bells because the pitches have been much better for batting. But he has largely been able to perform his role as the third spinner in the side, bowling his 107 overs at an economy of 3.5 only. Which considering that he's also expected to score hundreds is saying something.

The runs for Root haven't come like they used to in this part of the world. His average in Asia, where he has five hundreds, has dropped from 49 to 44. His highest score in this series has been 29, which came in the first innings of the first Test. Since then, he has 48 runs in five innings. It doesn't make sense when you reconcile his busier-than-ever batting approach in Bazball era with the conditions that have been on offer. Each dismissal of a top-seven batter in this series is costing roughly 11 runs more than England's last series here, so there are runs on offer.

On the contrary, Root's series average this time is 33 runs lower than his last on these shores, but that doesn't mean you have been oblivious to Root. There has been glamour in how he has failed. There has been drama in how he's gotten out to Jasprit Bumrah's reverse swing. Shiny side of the ball on the inside and he's been fallen lbw; shiny side on the outside and he's edged it to slip. When Bumrah wasn't bowling at all, he's jumped out of his crease to R Ashwin and skewed a catch to short third man. And when Bumrah wasn't getting any reverse swing, he's reverse-ramped him straight to second slip.

It's that funky shot, played on a cataclysmic third morning in Rajkot, that has hogged the headlines. Root has got the world talking even though he pretty much failed in his pursuit to get rid of the slips and manoeuvre the field as a result. He's suddenly become this perfect embodiment of everything that Bazball is, even though he isn't really. Just look at Ben Duckett, who feels that Root's dismissal was the "same as playing a drive and nicking off to second slip", or at Brendon McCullum, who didn't quite see the the shot as "high risk" at all and went on to envisage a time when playing that shot becomes the "norm" for an "even better Joe Root".

"How many games are we going to win if that happens?" the England coach would ask rhetorically.

Root has played many a shot in his career that should earn him more footage than his last. He famously played the same shot against Pat Cummins for a six. His latest attempt at it didn't come off and that's fine, but here, it didn't come off and England lost and India gained ascendancy and a 2-1 lead. It could be a point of no return for the visitors.

It's certainly not the way Root would want that shot to be remembered. And certainly not the inflection point he'd want for the series. Luckily, there's time to redeem himself, starting here in Ranchi where he wouldn't have to face up to Bumrah, and where runs might come easy for him because they won't for others on a dry pitch.

Yes, the last few weeks have felt odd. Root's been heard dreaming on a microphone, he's been seen doing things with the ball that's unbecoming of a part-time spinner, and he's been the talk of the town for not making runs. It's not the Joe Root we know. England would love to have him at the center of it all with the bat. So in case you have been looking out for Joe Root this series, he's around... somewhere.