Critical loss of discipline in the field turns a winnable Test into a very long shot
Matt Roller17-Oct-2024With the floodlights on full beam and England two wickets down, Brendon McCullum’s feet briefly came down from the metal railing at the front of their dressing-room balcony. England exuded confidence across the first seven days of this series but the eighth was a bruising one, which ended with them facing a heavy defeat against a resurgent Pakistan.Trailing by 127 overnight on a pitch that threatened to deteriorate quickly, England needed almost everything to go their way. The plan was simple enough: scrap up towards parity in the first session, and hope that Pakistan would suffer another third-innings mental block which allowed England back into the game.Instead, their day was defined by missed chances – and specifically, two of them in three balls early in Salman Agha’s innings. Salman held England up last week, scoring 167 runs for once out across the first Test, but offered two chances before he had reached double figures. Both went to ground, and he made England pay for their profligacy.The first was a clanger. On 4, Salman edged Brydon Carse through to Jamie Smith, who kept well throughout the English summer but has faced a different challenge on his first overseas tour. He took three sharp chances in the first innings, standing much closer to the stumps than usual to counter the low bounce, but he will know that this was a bad miss.Carse looked crestfallen at the first drop, then sunk to his haunches in disbelief after the second chance went down two balls later. Salman’s thick outside edge flew to Joe Root, so tight in at slip that he was wearing a helmet, who got both hands to the ball but could not cling onto it. Ben Stokes could not conceal his annoyance, swearing in frustration.In the heat of the afternoon, Carse was into the fifth over of a gruelling spell, hitting the pitch as hard as he could – but his fielders were letting him down. Stokes was ticking, and when Salman steered the first ball of Carse’s next over to point for a single that he felt could have been stopped, he made his feelings clear.England had sloppy moments in the field in the first Test too, though their mammoth batting effort ensured they were not costly. They dropped at least six catches, including four in the first 30 overs of Pakistan’s second innings, while Ollie Pope missed a run-out chance and Smith fluffed a stumping.Jack Leach lends his head to Harry Brook for some ball-shining•Getty ImagesBut Stokes, watching on, was generally impressed by England’s attitude in the field, specifically their commitment to chasing every ball to the boundary in heat that touched 40 degrees. On the eve of this match, he said their desire to do “the really very small things” showed their “togetherness and team spirit”. On Thursday, it briefly let them down.”It is frustrating, at times,” Paul Collingwood, England’s assistant coach, said. “It’s unusual to be standing so close to the bat, but the nature of the pitch is that you’ve got to try to make sure that any edge carries. We saw plenty of balls that bounced twice through to Jamie Smith… These lads have gone probably an extra two or three yards closer to actually take the edge.”Related
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There were other half-chances throughout Pakistan’s innings that were missed: Root, at slip, barely saw the first, when Saud Shakeel’s thick edge flew over his left shoulder, while Zak Crawley got a finger to a tough grab at short cover. Ben Duckett nearly held onto an athletic self-relay effort at long-on, but could not recover his footing in time.Carse, who has been hugely impressive in his first two Tests, must have rued his misfortune. During a ninth-wicket stand worth 65 between Salman and Sajid Khan, which sapped the life out of England, he thought he had Sajid caught behind on 16. But his attempts to convince Chris Gaffaney were unsuccessful, and a DRS outage denied him the chance to prove otherwise.These misses would hardly warrant a mention in different circumstances, but England were running cold on a day when only a hot streak would do. Pakistan’s brave decision to rip up their strategy between Tests and reuse the same strip in the hope it would turn relied heavily on winning the toss, but since the moment they did, they have been ahead of the game.Betting is outlawed in Pakistan, but their brains trust took a punt which has paid off. “Pakistan have taken a risk on winning the toss and they have done in this Test match,” Collingwood said. “As we’ve seen on the first day, the pitch played pretty well. It’s a gamble they were willing to take, and a gamble they were willing to take in selection. But from our point of view, we can’t complain.”England are not out of this match yet, as evidenced by a glimpse of McCullum’s white soles as Root and Pope put on an unbroken 25 late in the day. They have made a habit of pulling off wins from unlikely situations in Pakistan, but completing their highest-ever run chase in Asia on a ninth-day pitch might just be their toughest challenge yet.
