Faulty England drop themselves in the soup

A complex game, cricket becomes remarkably simple when the ball lands in hands and pops back out. The dropped catch at Test match level is a mortifying error that falls within the bounds of human fallibility but still feels unforgivable. England dropped six of them as India batted a second time – and paid for it, as India ran up a second-innings lead of 373.

With a series on the line, non-adhesive catching is especially costly. And this series is just about still on the line. Reprieved half a dozen times, India steamed ahead on this sobering Saturday, as the forging of a feisty young Test team continued.

Injuries can be totted up as the casualty count of squeezing five Test matches into 44 days. Sympathy for the fallen is abundant. But watching England spill six wicket-taking chances elicited no compassion from the crowd, who looked on forlornly as Ravindra Jadeja passed 50 for the sixth time on the tour and Washington Sundar ran amok. Bottom line: England will have to be the first team in Oval history to chase more than 300 in a fourth innings.

This has been an enthralling sardined series, irrespective of the giant run harvests on docile pitches, and the soreness inflicted on bowlers. The finale at The Oval has been fittingly chaotic and concludes with England chasing an outlandish number – but without Stokes, and only 10 batsmen, unless Chris Woakes comes out like El Cid.

The task is self-inflicted. To measure the frustration caused by England’s wasteful catching you had only to watch Stokes’s mood darken from his vantage point on the pavilion balcony.

Hors de combat, and visibly unimpressed by his team’s buttery grasp of flying balls, England’s captain might have fixed the maladroitness of his fielders with a few disapproving stares had his body not ground to a halt at Old Trafford.

Catching is a technical act, but it can also betray a woolly mindset, a lack of focus. There are many ways to lose a Test – and a series – but dropped catches must be the most galling. It’s an egregious waste of effort across six weeks to keep putting balls on the floor, especially when a draw would be good enough to wrap up a series.

England fluffed three chances in the first 15 overs of India’s second innings, via Zak Crawley, Liam Dawson and Harry Brook. The following day Crawley doubled his tally when the nightwatchman Akash Deep was on 21 (he made a career-high 66). And so did Brook after Crawley had started to dive across him, left hand outstretched, before pulling out too late to un-distract Brook, who grinned incongruously as he lay on the floor.

Ben Duckett then lifted England’s total to 21 put-downs for the series when dropping a Yashasvi Jaiswal glance to leg gully off the bowling of Jamie Overton. Jaiswal had three reprieves and punished England with a knock of 118. Root, Overton, Atkinson and Smith behind the stumps managed to hold on to chances – but those wickets felt like consolation prizes. India reached tea with a lead of 281 (304-6), with another masochistic England run chase looming – or six and a quarter sessions to survive.

England have tried to close the deal here without Stokes, Jofra Archer and Woakes, who injured his shoulder careering over the boundary ropes in India’s first innings. A Bazball throwback 92-run partnership between Duckett and Crawley before lunch on Friday was showbiz while it lasted but riddled with Bazball’s flaws.

The needless ramp shot that ended Duckett’s innings on 43 was suggestive of him thinking his job was already done. Perhaps it didn’t occur to England’s openers that staying put for 150 runs rather than 92 would exert far more pressure on India when they (England) knew they were going to be a bowler short for the second innings without Woakes – in a match where avoiding defeat would clinch the series.

Crawley and Duckett, who sound like a firm of Buckinghamshire solicitors, can at least fire back with numbers. With 589 partnership runs, they are the first opening pair to pass 500 in a five-Test series since David Warner and Joe Burns against New Zealand in 2015.

The last English pair to do so were Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook in the 2010-11 Ashes, Cricinfo says.

These stats obscure the reality that Crawley came out to lead England’s retrieval mission with a Test average of 31.4. But first exhausted England bowlers laboured to keep India below 400 as August’s weakening rays broke through London’s iron clouds.

India, remember, had resumed yesterday morning on 72-2, holding only a slender advantage. At least they were stopped short of the 400, when Crawley finally caught one – the wicket of Sundar, as Crawley and Pope went for it together and just about avoided colliding when taking the catch.

Sundar inflicted the final indignities of India’s second innings, smashing two fours and a six off Atkinson to bring up his 50.

No wonder Stokes’s understudy Pope had nipped up to the dressing room earlier in the day to consult coach Brendon McCullum, presumably on tactics. Not that it helped.

For England, the Oval has extended the loss of momentum at Old Trafford and been a place of many thrills but way too many spills.

Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images