It is to be hoped that Josh Hull will have better days in Test cricket. Unfortunately, his first on the field as an England player will be remembered for one of the worst dropped catches in international history rather than his maiden wicket.
In mitigation, visibility was poor and the Oval is not the best seeing ground in the country, but in flooring a dolly spooned to mid-on by Sri Lankan captain Dhananjaya de Silva shortly after tea, England’s new giant left-armer provided the tourists with a huge let-off.
Had the most straight-forward of dismissals been completed, Sri Lanka would have been 152 for six. Instead, when bad light forced a premature end to play at 5.30pm, they were 211 for five, the momentum firmly with them.
It capped a second day punctuated by frustration for England that began with them losing their last seven wickets for just 64 runs.
They also reduced Sri Lanka to 93 for five before de Silva and Kamindu Mendis combined in the kind of mid-innings fightback synonymous with their cricket in 2024. Both resume this morning, half-centuries to their names, attempting to wipe out a deficit of 114 runs.
Josh Hull, on Test match debut, pulled out of of the worst drops ever on day two of the third Test at the Oval
He also took a wicket on debut, but it will instead be rememebered for the dropped catch
Ollie Pope’s side face a difficult task in staying on top of the game when the match continues
Olly Stone had done his utmost to create the kind of position from which England could push for a sixth Test win from six this summer when he followed his earlier direct hit run out of opening batsman Dimuth Karunaratne with the cheap dismissals of experienced duo Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal.
In between, Leicestershire’s Hull, surely the England bowler with the longest run-up since the days of Bob Willis, was celebrating a first Test victim, the beneficiary of Chris Woakes’ agile pouch narrowly above the turf at mid-off that terminated an innings of 64, from 51 deliveries, by Pathum Nissanka.
There is plenty to work on with Hull, not least making the most of his 6ft 7ins frame in delivery.
Amongst Test-capped English seamers, he is 15th in terms of release point at 2.08 metres, 16cm shy of Steve Harmison — the best user of height — despite being second tallest to Boyd Rankin. The higher the release, the greater the bounce and stopping him collapsing at the crease is one of the first challenges for the England coaching staff.
There were promising signs, however. Having top-scored with 154 in the first innings, Ollie Pope recognised the threat of the swinging ball, setting uber- aggressive fields. Seven close catchers naturally created huge gaps in the outfield, but Hull appeared unperturbed.
His entrance into the attack came 20 minutes after a farcical episode involving bad light that resulted in Woakes bowling off-spin for four deliveries immediately after Stone’s breakthrough run-out.
The restriction, placed by the on-field officials Joel Wilson and Chris Gaffaney following a light-meter reading, attracted boos from an Oval full house.
They turned to jeers moments later when the umpires decreed the passing of a particularly angry-looking cloud had made it safe for Gus Atkinson, speeds pleasingly up to an average of 85 miles per hour following last week’s dip during the second Test at Lord’s, to continue from the Pavilion End.
Hull was embraced by unlucky bowler Shoaib Bashir (pictured) during a period where there was little created by England’s bowlers
Kamindu Mendis extended his record of contributing a 50 in each of the Tests he has played
The sense of farce then returned in the evening session when Pope agreed to the exclusive use of his spin options to keep the players on the field.
Other than De Silva’s escape on 23, however — for which Hull received a reassuring embrace from the unlucky bowler Shoaib Bashir — there was precious little created in terms of chances and a period in which the Sri Lankan sixth-wicket pair shared a hundred stand inside 24 overs did England’s match position more harm than good.
Mendis, a player who extended his record of contributing at least one 50 in each of the six Tests he has played, ensured the tourists ended the day as they began it.
England did not settle on a murky second morning in south London that began with Harry Brook being given out caught behind immediately after bringing up 5,000 first-class runs from the second ball of the day from Lahiru Kumara.
Brook allayed those jitters by successfully challenging Joel Wilson’s decision, but it was only a brief reprieve for the Yorkshireman, who also survived when skipping down the track and slicing Milan Rathnayake’s first delivery of the day to the fumbling Asitha Fernando at deep point, before his luck finally ran out.
He was silenced — over the stump microphones he could be heard telling the Sri Lankans they were boring for bowling wide — when he flung his arms at another delivery outside off from
Rathnayake, picking out short cover. It was a dismissal that opened an end up for a Sri Lankan attack showing improvement from 24 hours earlier.
Sadly, Brook’s frenetic approach proved infectious for the home team. Although Pope was granted a leg before life by the narrowest of DRS margins, denying the recalled left-armer Vishwa Fernando, his colleagues were soon picking out fielders themselves.
Pope starred with the bat, eventually falling for 154 on his home ground during play on Saturday
Having swelled his overnight 103 into the fastest 150 in Test cricket at the Oval via a clutch of cuts and slices — surpassing Travis Head’s effort in Australia’s World Test Championship final win over India at this famous old ground last year — Pope was held at long leg from a rare Vishwa short ball.
By that stage, Vishwa had drawn an error from Jamie Smith while Woakes and Atkinson were suckered by de Silva’s left-field decision to defy cricketing logic, breaking up the aerial movement from his pace bowlers with some of his own off-spin.
When Hull and Bashir fell in quick succession, the final six wickets had fallen inside 10 overs — but it was not biggest muddle the pair were involved in.