It’s a field of screams for Root and Co

SLOPPIER than a French kiss, the fielding went from safe hands to Edward Scissorhands. Just when you thought they had consigned dropped catches and gormless overthrows to the past, England unearthed more bad habits than a booze-up in a monastery.

From Jason Roy’s costly shelling of a steepler to reprieve Mohammad Hafeez to Joe Root’s wild shy from backward point, with nobody in the same postcode backing up, England’s handiwork was riddled with anxiety.

And if the contrast between near-perfection against South Africa at The

Oval to this soup sandwich four days later doesn’t ring any alarm bells in the

England think tank, there’s nobody home in the belfry.

Whether concentration or complacency was the key, number-crunchers reckon there were at least 13 misfields in Pakistan’s romp to 348-8. In a bloated competition where it takes six weeks to whittle 10 nations down to two, England’s slipshod display in the field was not fatal. But if they make it to the business end of the World Cup next month, leaking seven runs an over will heap intolerable scoreboard pressure on the batsmen. One slapstick aberration summed up England’s frustration. At 307-4, Root (above) made a fine stop at backward point to deny Sarfaraz Ahmed a boundary. With Sarfaraz loitering out of his ground, Root threw impetuously at the stumps, only for his shy to yield four overthrows. England cannot win the World Cup simply by relying on their one-day batting galacticos. Every slip in the field matters.