Guwahati, Nov. 25 -- The myth is shattered. And India have still not lost yet. A second home series defeat in just over a year is on the horizon though, plainly because India have been playing a brand of cricket no one can relate to. Not a brand really, more like a commotion of half-baked, atrociously executed ideas. One that prompts fiddling with pitches, packing elevens with allrounders to increase batting depth, changing batting orders in consecutive Tests, everything apart from what really matters-batting as if their lives depended on it. Rishabh Pant gave the charge to Marco Jansen like he was finally ready to shift gears after biding his time. Fact is he had only batted seven balls. Sai Sudharsan faced 40 balls on his comeback innings at No 3, only to throw away the good start with a ridiculous shot. And the horror of watching Dhruv Jurel fail at another pull shot was a painful concession on the altar of India's glorified strategy of backing outrageous shots even though they are completely unwarranted, especially when Jurel hadn't even opened his account. All this, mind you, on a pitch where South Africa's lower order showed the spunk to reach 489 from 246/6. Nothing too fancy, nothing too outlandish, just simple, patient Test batting got them there. India, however, chose to take a detour that has hurt them dearly. A miracle looks unlikely from here. Barring a tough catch KL Rahul put down at second slip in the first over from Jasprit Bumrah, South Africa looked pretty solid and primed to set India a tough fourth innings target on Tuesday. The past is replete with instances of India resolutely batting out fifth days on more devious pitches but so insipid, reckless and unimaginative has been the top order that expecting even a semblance of fightback is futile. South Africa were in no hurry to rub in the humiliation as well, not enforcing the follow on despite getting the highest first-innings lead (299 runs) in India since the Bangladesh Test in 2017. Now sitting on a lead of 314 at the end of a forgettable third day, the visitors basically have India at their mercy. The lead could have been embarrassingly bigger if Washington Sundar and Kuldeep had not added 72 runs in 208 deliveries across 124 minutes to take India from a parlous 122/7 to 194/8. Washington is fresh out of his heroics at Eden Gardens, so his credibility isn't news anymore. To see Yadav bat out 134 balls on a pitch that he had called a road however felt like a dig at his more illustrious mates. India have no one else to blame for this predicament. Man to man, session to session, South Africa looked better prepared, better skilled and in a better head space in every possible metric. This was a third day pitch waiting to be milked for runs but only after due respect had been paid to the overhead conditions in the first hour. South Africa had even set the scoring template on Sunday, but India approached the day as if they were trying to set a target. Jansen exploited that needless aggression with a hostile phase of short-pitched bowling that fetched him 6/48, which tagged along with his first-innings 93 and a brilliant catch of Yashasvi Jaiswal-India's only half-centurion in this series-already makes him the top applicant for the player of this Test. Each of his bouncers that got rid of Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Jasprit Bumrah were either aimed for the head or strategically bowled to trigger a miscue. The slowness of the pitch forced this tactic, as it probably prompted Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj as well on Sunday. But unlike them, Jansen made his height and precision count. Jurel's predilection for the pull made Jansen bang it short but wide, and he followed it without timing it. To Reddy, Jansen produced a nasty snorter that took an edge off the glove, making Aiden Markram scamper to his right and take a one-handed blinder on the go. Jadeja cut the sorriest figure, Jansen's bouncer hitting him on the shoulder before taking a faint deflection off his bat. It was a full scale meltdown that Jansen triggered on a pitch that was supposed to be good for batting, underlining the intensive preparation that must have gone behind this tour. Also the dogged belief that helped them wrest each of the small margins, Jansen said later. The quagmire that India find themselves in is partly because of not winning those small margins. Like Rahul edging Keshav Maharaj to slip after batting out the opening hour. Like Jaiswal edging to Jansen at short third man after grafting his way to a promising fifty. Like Sudharsan pulling Simon Harmer straight to Ryan Rickleton at midwicket. Probably most insensitive was the way Pant chose to be dismissed in his debut as captain. That he wouldn't curb his ways despite the severity of the situation was apparent when he skipped down the pitch to convert Harmer's flighted ball into a full toss and smoke it straight down for a six. To attempt the same against the towering Jansen, however, proved to be suicidal. As the last specialist batter in the line-up, that too at 105/4, what else was that but irresponsible cricket?...