'We've got to eradicate collapses' – Jos Buttler

India’s Hardik Pandya picked up his maiden five-wicket haul as the England batsmen crumbled on Sunday, 19 August. It was the third time in 24 Tests that England have lost all 10 wickets in one session. Not too long ago, they were rolled over for 58 in New Zealand.

Buttler, who was the top scorer with 39, admitted it was “very disappointing” and was at a loss to explain why the collapses happened.

"It comes down to the guys working hard, being disciplined, practice, all of the above," he said after the day’s play. "It takes a lot of character for us to come back from situations like this.

“Rightly, people say it's been happening too often, which it has. Guys have got to improve. We know that to get to where we want to go, we need to eradicate these collapses.

"The key is trying not to make the same mistakes. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again, whether that's as an individual or as a team.

“Credit to India, they got the ball to swing. We weren’t good enough to deal with that today. There's no magic answer, I don't think, apart from hard work.”

Buttler said it was up to the England batsmen to “wrestle back the initiative – maybe with a counter-attacking style or someone trying to sit in and be a bit of a limpet for an hour and ride that session out”, but they hadn’t been able to do that.

The batsman insisted that the hosts, coming into the match leading 2-0, had not been complacent. “It was always going to be a competitive series. Just because they were 2-0 down I don’t think we could have taken anything lightly,” he said, adding that the team were in good spirits.

India, 124/2 in their second innings, have extended their lead to 292 and put themselves in a good position for victory. Buttler, though, backed his team to make a fight of it.

“We’ll turn up tomorrow and we’ll be fighting hard. No one’s going to give up or throw the towel in.”