In the recent Australia Test series defeat, the India management displayed a strange adamance on cushioning their batting with all-rounders at the cost of their ability to take 20 wickets. Despite needing an outright victory in the last Test to equalise, they inexplicably picked a team aimed at avoiding defeat, when just avoiding defeat wouldn't have been enough.

The solution looked obvious - pick an extra seamer over a spin-bowling all-rounder - but India seemed to be bound by self-imposed shackles of fear, which eventually culminated in a historically low end to the Test season.

But when they turned up in Kolkata for the first T20I of the new white-ball season, all that fear vanished into thin air.

It started at the toss. Mohammed Shami was expected to make his much-awaited comeback at his home ground. Videos with filmmaking-level production had been shot and uploaded by the BCCI, marking his return. "Born and brought up in UP, made in Bengal," is how Shami had started his speech at an event hosted by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) at the Eden Gardens two days ahead of the game. The stage was set. Yet, his name found no mention in the teamsheet, dampening the local crowd's spirits to some extent. It wouldn't stay like that for long.

India went in with three spinners and a lone frontline seamer in the form of Arshdeep Singh on a surface that had produced some of the highest-scoring matches in recent IPL seasons and hadn't been particularly conducive to spin bowling. Nothing in the pitch for this game seemed to suggest it would be otherwise. And with dew expected to play a major role at night, playing the extra seamer would have been the 'safer' option, something India have chosen quite a lot recently.

Even if Shami was not fit enough to start (there has been no confirmation on this from anyone in the India camp), India had the option of Harshit Rana, another 'local' player who had success with KKR, but they chose the risky, attacking alternative of Ravi Bishnoi instead.

Bishnoi didn't pick any wickets, but he conceded only 22 in his four overs as England's batters continued to struggle to read the Indian spinners off the hand and off the pitch. They were first undone by Varun Chakravarthy's brilliance. The mystery spinner enjoying a second wind to his T20I career broke the back of the English middle order by knocking over the stumps of Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone in the eighth over with two fizzing googlies.

Before that, Suryakumar Yadav had Arshdeep and Hardik Pandya combine to bowl five overs of seam in the powerplay as India weren't afraid to rely on spin for the back end and frontload their seam overs in order to give them the best chance to succeed with the new ball.

"India's selection increasingly looking absolutely spot on," is how Harsha Bhogle put it on air as England kept imploding through the innings. Jos Buttler waged a lone battle at one end. He showed clinical footwork against Axar Patel to hit him for two sixes, an inside out over cover and a pull over mid-wicket, in the seventh over, before smashing Bishnoi for two boundaries in the 13th. The England captain's knock of 68 off 44 was also evidence of the demons not being in the wicket but rather in his teammate's skill levels against top-quality spin. The three India spinners combined to bowl 12 overs for 67 runs and five wickets. Of those, Buttler scored 37 in four overs, while seven other batters combined to score less than that (30) in twice the time (eight overs).

"Seriously good surface to bat on, there's no two ways about it," Deep Dasgupta said on air. "Just that the batting has been pretty average. I don't think there's much there for the bowlers. Maybe some (help) for the faster bowlers, but especially not for the spinners."

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Chasing 133, India then came out in their typically hyper-aggressive style with Abhishek Sharma leading the charge. Jofra Archer and Mark Wood combined to put on a hostile display of fast bowling, not giving the Indian openers anything in their half and often aiming for their heads with funky Test match fields - perhaps this is what Brendon McCullum had meant when he said he was "desperate for England to play a watchable brand of cricket" two days back - but their fire was met with fire.

After a quiet first over which had Sanju Samson hopping around, he nonchalantly hit Gus Atkinson for 22 in the second without breaking a sweat. Abhishek then smashed Archer for an effortless six over cover, but if one moment had to sum up how India had left the timidity and defensiveness of their Test approach in the distant past, it was Tilak Varma's first ball.

Archer had just dismissed Samson and Suryakumar in his previous four deliveries and was breathing fire. For Varma, he had mid-off and mid-on right next to the bowling crease and cover empty. It was obvious what was to come. At 41-2 in 4.5 overs, India once again had the choice of taking the 'safer' option of playing out Archer and Wood. How did Varma respond? A dance down the track and a wild swing of the bat resulting in a top-edged four over the keeper. The next two balls, by Wood, were deposited over the stands by Abhishek.

India were not going to play it safe. Scratch that. They were going to play it as unsafe as they possibly could.

After Suryakumar's wicket, India needed 92 off 91. They scored 92 off 48 to complete the chase inside 13 overs. "We never had a conversation that we have to play according to the situation or something like that," Abhishek would then say at the post-match press conference, perhaps describing the only right way to play T20 cricket in the process.

With the five-match T20I series, India have the perfect opportunity to get back into the habit of good processes and consequently, positive results, in what has become their best format since their World Cup victory before they switch over to ODIs and the Champions Trophy. Kolkata was the perfect initiation.

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