5 poor decisions that cost India the series against England

#2 Inadequate utilization of Ravichandran Ashwin at Edgbaston

Ashwin was not effectively utilised at Edgbaston

The Edgbaston pitch provided a fair bit of assistance to fast bowlers, despite which Ashwin extracted a prodigious amount of turn from the pitch. The delivery which dismissed Alistair Cook was particularly fascinating, turning right through his defence and knocking him over, speaking volumes about Ashwin's skill set. The 31-year old claimed four wickets in the innings.

When the English batsmen came out to bat for the second time, the pitch had quite something to relish for the spinners as well, with Ashwin claiming the priced scalp of Cook in a similar fashion. Ashwin cleaned up the top order, while Ishant Sharma ran through the middle order, with his triple wicket over reducing England to 87-7.

At this point, it was prudent for Kohli to bring back Ashwin into the attack and clean up the tail, since they find things difficult against the spinners. However, Kohli kept bowling Ishant and Shami, who continuously bowled wide lengths outside the off stump, enabling youngster Sam Curran to cut them for boundaries, en route to his quickfire 63. This knock proved to be the difference between the two sides, as India succumbed 31 runs shy of the target.