Three drops. Should I worry?

The batsman went back and cut the ball firmly. The trajectory was downward, but not downward enough. The ball was coming straight at me at backward point and it was going to carry. I stayed down, ready for what should have been a regulation catch. There was a line of dark trees beyond the boundary. As the ball passed across them, I lost sight of it. The next thing I knew it was crashing into my groin. Technically, it wasn't even a drop as I hadn't actually laid a hand on it. The batsman was out two balls later. The missed chance didn't bother me too much; I knew what had gone wrong, and while it was frustrating, it was at least explicable.

That was the first game of the Authors CC tour to Rome, which we lost by 30-odd runs to Campanelle. The next day we were back at the same ground, just off the Appian Way, for the main event, against the Vatican. Warming up, I dropped a simple catch up and to my left. It was a horrible drop, a snatch. A couple of minutes later, the batsman hitting catches for us top-edged the ball straight into the air. I rushed forward to try to take it, he shouted, and I slammed on the brakes as he smacked the ball straight at me from about four yards. Half-ducking, half-trying to catch it, I pulled off what would have been a remarkable reflex save had I been playing in goal, tipping the ball up over an imaginary crossbar as I flung myself backwards. But I didn't catch it.

The Vatican batted, and after 11 overs were 70 for 4. I was brought on to bowl my loopy offbreaks. My first ball was too straight and was worked into the leg side for two. The second ball dipped nicely and the batsman chipped the ball straight back to me. I took a simple catch: 72 for 5.

The number seven was a beefy left-hander. I came round the wicket and bowled a low full toss outside off stump. The batsman took a swipe and top-edged it. It went up in the vague direction of the vacant mid-on. I ran across and back, imagining already what it might be like to take a hat-trick. The ball went into the sun and out again, but it was okay, I had it. I was aware of midwicket charging in and shouted. This was clearly mine. And then, as I shuffled backwards, there was suddenly nothing under my left heel: a pothole. I tottered, staggered, started to fall. I got both hands to the ball, held it, then collapsed backwards and banged my head on the ground. The ball popped loose and I had an awful, intense spear of pain running from just to the right of my left ear down into my back.

I could hear my breathing and it wasn't good - a panicky fluttering. Somebody poured water over my head and I tried to stand up. My focus disintegrated and I slipped back again. A woman from an archaeological dig appeared and led me away, wrapping ice in a tea towel so I could hold it against the bump. I probably wasn't grateful enough: sorry and thank you. The big left-hander went on to score a rapid fifty, and by the time the Vatican's 20 overs were up, they'd amassed 183. I wobbled out to bat at No. 11 and mustered one not out off four balls, but by then the game was lost.

Two drops, and some nonsense in the warm-up. Sports statisticians deny the importance of confidence. There is convincing data that the "hot-hand" phenomenon in basketball, when players seem so inspired they cannot miss, doesn't, in fact, exist. Yet anybody who has ever fielded will know that there are days when you're desperate for the ball to come to you because you believe you can do anything, and there are days when you're praying for a quiet life because you think nothing will stick. Perhaps there's some kind of confirmation bias going on, but the days that feel good tend to be good and the days that feel bad tend to be awful. Once, playing as a ringer for Durham University Staff with an unsympathetic captain, I disintegrated so completely after dropping a steepler that looped over me at slip that by the end of the innings I couldn't even release the ball when trying to throw underarm. Even if confidence doesn't matter, it feels like it matters, which, given it's a mental thing, means that it does matter.

I was uneasy before my first domestic game of the season, at Victoria Park in Hackney at the beginning of May. I didn't drop anything in the warm-up, but the ball felt unnatural in my hands. My timing was off. I was still grabbing at catches. Having been 50 for 5, we made 160-odd off our 35 overs. They'd already lost a wicket when, in the fifth over, our quickest bowler took the outside edge. The ball flashed to my left at gully. I dived a great dive, a professional's dive, back arching, both arms outstretched and got there, but the ball hit the outside of the knuckle of the little finger of my left hand and popped loose.

We bowled them out and won easily enough, by over 100 runs, but it played on my mind. A third drop in three games. None of them were easy. Individually, you'd think nothing of them. But three together? It's a worry. Catching and reflex stops are what I do. I can't lose this. Maybe it's age, a fractional diminution of the capacity of the eye. Maybe it's chance. Confidence is waning. I just hope the statisticians are right.