The Ashes 2025: Joe Root defends England’s dropped catches – ‘never going to be perfect’

Joe Root insisted England worked as hard as they could to be ready for the day-night Ashes Test, despite missing five chances on the second day at the Gabba.

The tourists face an uphill task to stay in the match and the series after Australia closed on 378-6 – 44 runs ahead.

Four of the chances England missed came in the night session under the floodlights in Brisbane.

England rarely play pink-ball Tests – this is their eighth, compared to Australia’s 15th. Whereas Australia annually include a day-night Test in their schedule, England have played only one since their last visit to this country four years ago.

After losing the first Test inside two days, England opted not to send any of their XI from Perth to a day-night England Lions game against the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra.

Ben Stokes’ side instead had five training session in Brisbane, two of which were under floodlights.

“We worked as hard as we could,” said England batter Root. “We did a huge amount of catching and making sure we utilised those two sessions under lights well.

“Sometimes the catches just don’t stick. You’ve got to keep applying yourself and wanting the ball so you’re ready when that next opportunity comes. That’s one of the nuances of the game and this pink-ball Test match.”

However, former England captain Michael Vaughan told the Test Match Special podcast no amount of fielding drills can replicate match practice.

“I would have done things completely differently,” said Vaughan, who led England to victory in the 2005 Ashes. “What I saw today was a team that looked jaded.

“These fielding drills – they’re fantastic, but you know the ball is coming to you. In a game, you have no clue when it is coming to you and it is completely different.

“The art of taking chances is concentration. If you’re not out there on a regular basis practising for many hours, when that chance comes you have to be concentrating to take that opportunity. The only way you get good at that is by training the brain to do it.”

When this point was raised with Root, he countered: “It’s never going to be perfect. All you can do is give yourself the best possible chance and I think we’ve done that.

“In the lead-up to this game we’ve got used to conditions, we’ve got used to the heat, we got used to the surfaces. We’ve caught under lights, we’ve caught in daylight and tried to catch in twilight as well.

“We’re not perfect, we’re all human and we’re going to make mistakes.”

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