Day three of the second test against Sri Lanka is dawning.

The sun is revving up behind a couple of rainless clouds and the England coaching staff are locked in a fraught conference in the physio room.

"What about Freddie?"

"Can't risk him."

"Hoggard?"

"No chance."

"Pietersen? Collingwood?"

"I'm sorry boss, they're all too bunged up."

"Please, surely, there has to be someone who's fit enough to play. They'll be calling us Tottenham next."

"Well there is Monty"

"Are you sure he'll be okay?"

"Definitely," answers the physio with a rare confident smile creeping onto his lips. "He can't catch a cold."

With a ball in hand, Monty Panesar works magic. His spin bowling brought about chaos in India when he took 2-49.

But getting the ball to his hands in the first place is the real challenge.

The man is a fielding calamity.

Moments such as stopping a certain four only to pick the ball up with legs astride the boundary rope in the first test against Sri Lanka and dropping dollies at a rate that would get him hauled up on toy-cruelty charges.

His butter-fingered nature has already seen one radio commentary team agree that anything with a comedic edge will be from hereon in dubbed with tongue firmly in cheek a Panesar'.

Previously it was Kevin Pietersen wearing the fielding dunce's hat after failing to hold a single catch during last summer's Ashes series.

Stick him in a one-day game and he's a star with 16 catches in 30 including eight in the NatWest series versus the Aussies last summer.

But the tour of India was enough to shake off his test jitters and he's now making up for lost time.

As for Panesar, it's staggering that a man of 24 can get this far in his career without anyone stepping in for a manly heart-to-heart.

Legendary Lancastrian David Lloyd was more on the money than he realised when he proclaimed: "It's Monty Python versus Dhoni Osmond (Mahendra Singh Dhoni)." The irony being that he managed to hold onto a Dhoni shot to secure a first catch.

Kids at school would be mauled and to an extent rightly so for the errors he makes.

A cricketer who can't catch is on a par with an England goalkeeper who can't deal with crosses. Or a professional tennis player whose middle name is foot fault' for his serving technique.

The worrying thing for acting skipper Flintoff though is that in his own words after the final Sri Lanka innings in the first test it appears to be catching. If only it was.