Duncan hopes to tighten fielding

Their under-par display, in stark contrast to some of their fielding and catching during last summer’s Ashes series and the winter tours to Pakistan and India, could be interpreted as a worrying sign. But Fletcher was philosophical, “It’s pretty frustrating that we couldn’t finish them off— you have to say we didn’t win it because we dropped too many catches. You can probably afford to drop one or two catches, but we got on a run with it and that cost us the Test.

“It was very disappointing but the guys didn’t mean to drop the catches and we didn’t change our practices, we did the same routines and they caught very, very well.”

Fletcher remains convinced that the under-par fielding display can be dismissed as another Lord’s off-day following a similar display against Australia last summer, when a series of dropped catches condemned England to a 239-run defeat in the opening Test. “Nine dropped catches means we had to bowl a side out nearly three times and that would always be difficult to do on a wicket that didn’t really help the seamers,” he continued.