For a long time during the first Test in Madras (Chennai) a beturbaned, fiery finger spinner toiled away with no reward. The pitch was crumbling and so there was a high degree of expectation, but the batsmen played him easily, mostly off the back foot, working singles into the plentiful gaps on offer. There were relatively few alarms and, given the conditions, Harbhajan Singh must have been disappointed with his performance.

After England's defeat, the spotlight has been trained on Monty Panesar, but before he is condemned to the gallows in the rush to promote Adil Rashid, it might be instructive to compare him with India's spinners. Harbhajan has played 73 Test matches to Panesar's 34 and he has taken 193 more wickets than Panesar. He was also in the groove, having played a Test series against Australia and a one-day series against England. Panesar, bedevilled by bad luck and his non-selection in England's one-day team, had not twitched his index finger competitively for the best part of four months.

Even though Harbhajan was in form, bowling at a ground he knows well and at batsmen short of match practice, he made little impression. I am not entirely sure that Harbhajan is the bowler he used to be, now that an overextended use of the doosra - the ball that spins to the off - has affected his ability to drift and spin his stock ball, the off spinner. Nevertheless, England, and Andrew Strauss in particular, played him superbly well.

Although Panesar failed abjectly to do his bit on the final day, bowling 27 wicketless overs, comparing match figures does not show him in the poor light one may imagine. Amit Mishra, the leg spinner, bowled 51 overs, taking four for 165; Harbhajan bowled 68 overs, taking four for 187; Panesar bowled 46 overs, taking three for 170. The difference is not so marked.

Peter Moores, the England head coach, defended Panesar as England travelled to Mohali yesterday trying to come to terms with the defeat. “I have a lot of sympathy for Monty,” he said. “He hadn't bowled for the best part of four months, which is difficult for a spinner when he comes into a match with a lot of expectation. He has got an excellent record in Test cricket; he loves the game, loves bowling and is a pleasure to work with. He's young and he's going to get better all the time.”

A coach will always defend his players publicly because he knows how quickly trust will be lost if he does not, so Moores looked for other reasons why Panesar was ineffective. “Very few balls kept low and the bounce was always true; that made it easier to play the spinners than it might have been,” he said. He conceded, though, that England could not “shut the batsmen down or exert enough pressure”, while adding that the “skill levels of the Indian batsmen were incredibly high”.

Not for one minute am I suggesting that Panesar bowled well. His length was too variable, his modus operandi too predictable. There was an absence of the sharp spin that characterised some of his early performances and, most worryingly, his trademark enthusiasm and joy went missing for long periods. Although he is the senior spinner in international terms, he was outbowled by Graeme Swann. It was instructive that Kevin Pietersen turned to Swann at the start of the fifth day.

There are two main problems for Panesar: one is technical, the other is of expectation. At his best Panesar bowls with a lot of over (or top) spin, which encourages the ball to dip on the batsman. It is this dip that produces uncertainty in the batsman's mind as to whether to play forward or back. In Madras there was no dip because Panesar was bowling slightly around himself so that he was undercutting the ball. As long as he does not listen to too much advice, or the negative voices in his head, his rhythm and natural action will return with time and bowling. There is no need to panic.

The other problem is one of high expectation. Possibly because England supporters were yearning for a match-winning spinner, and partly because of his idiosyncrasies, Panesar was greeted as the messiah from the start. He is no Shane Warne; never has been, never will be. He is, however, a bloody good finger spinner and still the best England have by a distance. One bad game does not change that.