Why it happened I don't really know, but in the late 60s and early 70s my attention wondered somewhat and I didn't follow cricket as avidly as before. My interest began to revive during the 1974-75 Ashes series when Lillee and Thommo gave England a bit of a headache, and the visit of Clive Lloyd's West Indies side in 1976 really pulled me back in. By 1977 I was at Old Trafford to watch Greg Chappell's Australians. (Some of the days of that Test I spent in the company of Dave Webster, a South African anthropologist then in Manchester who was later murdered by the apartheid regime.) The first Test at Lord's had been drawn, and England won this, the second Test despite a century from Greg Chappell which was described by Wisden as 'magnificent' and 'a masterpiece of skill and concentration'. It was a wonderful innings indeed, but it was played while all his team-mates were falling haplessly, and I wasn't left optimistic about Australia's prospects of holding on to the Ashes.
When I really knew they were gone, though, was after an incident in the next Test at Trent Bridge. I was watching it on TV and Rick McCosker, fielding at second slip, failed to take a chance from Geoffrey Boycott. It was a bad chance to miss; Boycott went on to make a hundred. But that wasn't the essence of what bothered me. Standing right beside McCosker, Chappell reacted in an 'Oh my God, what have you done?' sort of way, eyes and hands thrown heavenwards in an expression of despair. And I thought... that's it! The dropped catch was unfortunate. But Chappell's reaction wasn't the behaviour of a captain in command of himself and it undermined confidence in the state of his team. Here is how the missed chance was covered:
Boycott kept his end shut but no sooner had he been joined by Knott, after batting three hours for 20, than he was dropped off Pascoe by McCosker at second slip which would have made the position 87 for six. - Wisden 1978Poor Rick McCosker, dropping the same catch over and over again, even unto eternity. England regained the Ashes 3-0.We slid from 34 for 0 to 82 for 5. Then Pascoe forced Boycott to play at a good length ball that left him; it found the edge, and went knee-high to McCosker, who missed the catch. From that point on, our fortunes revived. - Mike Brearley, The Return of the Ashes
The crucial moment of the day, perhaps of the entire series, came just after England's nadir of 82 for five. Boycott had made 20 when he pushed forward to Pascoe and edged to second slip where McCosker grounded a straightforward chance. - Christopher Martin-Jenkins, The Jubilee Tests
Having batted with all the precision (and interest) of a piece of well oiled repetition machinery, Boycott momentarily slipped a cog and snicked a fast delivery off Pascoe directly to Rick McCosker at second slip. To McCosker's chagrin and the astonishment of Chappell, standing beside him, the Australian grassed the chance. - Neil Phillipson, The Jubilee Test Series 1977
Some dropped catches mean more - much more - than others. To drop a Boycott is to let Napoleon off Elba, or to let Ronald Biggs over the wall. McCosker had the awful distinction of putting down a fairly straightforward chance at second slip, just to his right. The horror all round was clearly visible. - David Frith, The Ashes '77
Five runs later came the incident that many observers, and players, believe cost Australia the series. Boycott, 20 in five minutes short of three hours, was forced to jab hastily at Pascoe. The outside edge travelled thigh-high and smoothly, just to McCosker's right at second slip. And that fieldsman, unbelievably, got both hands to it and dropped it. The hands covering the dismayed faces of Chappell and Marsh told the story well enough. - Peter McFarline, A Game Divided
[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]