Is it time for Stokes to move out of slips?

In training, Ben Stokes' catching drills are, by design, set up to be more difficult than what he encounters in a game. The theory being that when a batsman edges the ball off Dom Bess in a Test match, say, the chance feels easier than practice and he then should catch it as a result. It's a concept Eddie Jones uses with England's rugby union team, too, one that he picked up from watching a Pep Guardiola training session at Bayern Munich a few years ago. Jones says his main focus now is on making every training session he runs harder than a match so that the matches seem easier to his players.

In Stokes' case, his training involves standing extremely close to the bat when he is practising slip catches off the spinners. He also puts obstacles in the way so the ball might move off them late, forcing him to react. Watching Stokes go through these drills, it's easy to flinch as the ball first hits the bat, then ricochets off one of the obstacles, before reaching him. Thinking about a possible second deflection is disconcerting, even just watching Stokes. Will the ball hit the obstacle, will it not? If it does, will it make a beeline for Stokes' face? But Stokes doesn't flinch. He stands there and tries to catch flies.

And yet, for some reason, Stokes keeps dropping catches in matches.

He dropped Abid Ali today off James Anderson at second slip when the batsman had four to his name. It was Joe Root's catch to Stokes' left but the all-rounder dived across and shelled it. There are no prizes for guessing what Anderson thought of that. It was the fourth catch Stokes has dropped this summer, all at slip. It is becoming a worrying trend. For although Stokes takes some brilliant catches - remember his one-handed worldie in the opening game of last summer's World Cup against South Africa? - he drops a fair amount too.

According to the data company CricViz, the all-rounder has a 76% success rate at slip since the start of 2015 which is comfortably below average in Test cricket. Top of the list? Faf du Plessis with a remarkable 96% success rate.

Might it be time to move Stokes out of the cordon? That will not be a move taken lightly, both because of the difficult chances Stokes is able to take, his work ethic and his athleticism. But England cannot go on forever having a second slip who, on average, drops one chance in every four. Dom Sibley fielded at first slip in the opening Test of the summer when Root was absent at the birth of his second child. He stands in the slips for his county, Warwickshire, and is known as a good catcher. England have a ready-made replacement, then, should they decide a change is needed.

Stokes is not the only player to drop catches, of course. Everyone does it, even du Plessis. And indeed, Stokes has a fair amount of company in this game. Anderson himself dropped Asad Shafiq at backward point off the bowling of Chris Woakes in the final session. In Pakistan's first innings, Jos Buttler dropped Shan Masood and Yasir Shah off Bess' off-spin and missed a stumping off Masood for good measure. In total, those missed chances have cost England 142 runs. In a tight game, that might well be the difference between winning and losing.

England's fielding has already cost them the chance to win one Test this summer, the first of the series against West Indies at the Ageas Bowl last month. On the final day, needing to bowl the tourists out to win the game, England missed four chances, two dropped catches and two run outs. The margin of defeat? Four wickets. There were dropped catches and a number of missed run out opportunities in the second and third Tests too, albeit that England were still able to emerge victorious in those matches.

Scrutiny of Buttler's position behind the stumps has intensified after the mistakes of the opening two days although he has been relatively secure with the gloves since he reclaimed them from Jonny Bairstow at the start of last winter. Aside from the missed chances in this game, he has been generally untidy too, dropping a number of balls behind the stumps. In Pakistan's first innings, when the ball was wobbling, sometimes after it had passed the batsman, there was some mitigation. There was little by way of mitigation today.

The fumbles so far in Pakistan's second innings and one lot of four byes from a what should have been a relatively straightforward take, suggested a distracted mind. His body language, head often down, shoulders forward, suggests a lack of confidence. Buttler is not the most demonstrative character behind the stumps, but England's wicket-keeper needs to set the tone for the rest of the fielders to follow. He has not done that so far in this match. The constant presence of Ben Foakes running on and off the pitch carrying drinks can hardly have helped his frame of mind.

As well as having the basic skills, game awareness is a key aspect of good fielding, allowing fielders to anticipate where the ball might go and what the batsman might try to do. That was also found wanting in the first innings, however, when Masood and Shadab Khan picked off singles inside the ring with abandon in the middle session yesterday. England's fielders were on their heels and then were too slow to move their starting positions a yard or two closer to prevent the runs. It was an important phase of play which shifted the dynamic of the Test.

Alongside the missteps, there have been moments of real quality from England in the field this summer. Sibley's run out of Shafiq today, running in from point and contorting his body to throw in the opposite direction to which he was running was a fine piece of work. Dom Bess ran Roston Chase out in similar fashion in the second innings of the final Test against West Indies. Ollie Pope took a couple of excellent diving catches in that series too, one at short leg to claim the winning wicket in the second Test and one at midwicket during the third match to remove Jason Holder. He looks a very handy all-round fieldsman.

More generally though, England drop catches too frequently and they don't hit the stumps as much as they should. This is not a new problem. It was evident during the winter, too. Dropping BJ Watling on 35 in Mount Maunganui in November cost England the small matter of 174 runs. None of this is to suggest the squad don't work hard at their fielding. They do. They are also incredibly fit, a prerequisite for a good fielding side. But right now, the results aren't coming.

It needs to be addressed. After all, they don't want to keep having to create 25 chances each game when 20 is all they should need.