Being a spinner in world cricket is next to impossible, the pitches all over the world don’t aid you, making your life tough and the conditions, which favour you, you don’t get the due respect and applause. Now combine that with the factor of being an English spinner, while you are surely not destined to play every game at home, the minute you step into the sub-continent, you get unduly criticised and even dropped. 

On paper, in a pink-ball Test, it would have sounded as a plan etched in gold but it wasn’t, the conditions weren’t one bit seamer-friendly, barring the odd overs under the lights. Even if England read it otherwise, their lack of trust in Bess was a telling factor, especially since his ability to pick wickets, in a jiffy. While with James Anderson and Stuart Broad - they would have wanted to go with their trusted choice but the conditions? 

By their logic, none of the top-order, excluding Joe Root - would warrant a place in the playing XI - after what they have shown in the previous two Tests, an all-time low for the Three Lions in a country that they have always taken pride in playing. While on the pitch, they really couldn’t get their head around the ball spinning, away from the pitch as well, they couldn’t wrap around the fact that spin, in fact, could win them games. 

“England need to bring Dom Bess back into the side for the next match and play two spinners and they need to think about the balance of the side. I would also make sure Jimmy plays the next Test – he has been the most threatening seamer,” wrote Monty Panesar on The Times website. 

"Dom has contributed fantastically well in these three games and has made a real impact. With him missing out, the messaging for him is to keep working at that consistency of his game, delivering that skill time and time again. We talk about building pressure over long periods of time and, as well as he has done and the contributions he has made, that is one area he can improve on,” Root said after Bess’ decision. 

Magically, the off-spinner is never going to transform overnight into Graeme Swann but without an opportunity in conditions where the ball will favour his bowling, he will never be able to showcase his identity. England have already lost time, on the mess that they have created, in the past two Tests. The Bess decision is not something that would hurt them just this tour but even might cause the off-spinner to go down the confidence route, a similar treatment to Moeen. 

At the age of 23, having hailed from Exter, Bess has already shown that the next-line generation of spinners are ready but England, have to, need to start trusting them, now more than ever. Combined with Jack Leach, the duo have picked up a combined 444 first-class wickets for Somerset but after the very first Test, they were separated, once for a returning Moeen and the other time, for a pace attack. 

As Swann has mentioned from time to time, it is not the physical part of the game which has hindered Bess but the mental part, one that has been specified from time to time, England need to play the off-spinner to get rid of that. A player overnight transforms into a hero, neither did James Anderson in Asia nor did Rishabh Pant at home. The drift, the spin and the dip - something that Bess is known for, has gone missing, not because he has performed badly but because he hasn’t been picked. 

The Three Lions need to reconsider their plans - now - with the series and a future on the line, not just for themselves but also for an off-spinner, who picked up six wickets in the first Test. If his ball that turned and took out the Indian skipper by surprise, his selection, rather non-selection, has taken the team’s bowling performance by surprise. 

After trusting the duo for over a year, England’s trust in Bess signals a disjointed plan - because of the way they have treated him after a poor day in office. Just when Bess had arrived in Chennai, he disappeared at the same venue in the very next Test, reading disjointed from every angle.