Question: what is more humiliating after you've set a 6-3 leg-side field? Getting punched through cover, or being struck for a boundary around the corner beyond the three men you've stationed in line with square leg, and the two behind?
You don't have to choose. England and Josh Tongue certainly didn't. At around 5pm on day three, in the 37th over of New Zealand's innings, by which stage their lead was stretching to 300 for the loss of just two second-innings wickets, Joe Root pulled the fraying chord on their short-ball tactic.
Rachin Ravindra benefited, off the back foot on both occasions to drive through the off-side then pull through the on. Henry Nicholls similarly got in on the act - a carve over point, and a pull skewed fine - when the same plan was handed to Sonny Baker from the Pavilion End. Unlike Ravindra, Nicholls used the bump in the scoring rate to pocket an 11th Test hundred, in his first match back since replacing the irreplaceable Kane Williamson in the XI.
It did not matter whether the tactic was right or wrong. An inexperienced England seam attack, entering the third innings of the match while already nursing a 100-run deficit, had no choice but to take their medicine in stifling 30-degree heat. Particularly with no full-time spinner available to offer them shade.
This was another nod to the omission of Ben Stokes. Just as it was for the last Oval Test against India, the lack of an allrounder persuaded England to park their full-time spinner - Liam Dawson then, Shoaib Bashir now - for an extra quick. The folly of it all was characterised by Jacob Bethell's drag-down that allowed Nicholls a free swipe to midwicket to move to three figures. The left-hander eventually went in at stumps unbeaten on 119 with New Zealand only three-down and 352 ahead.
Just as the absence of the Test captain confirmed that English cricket is operating in peculiar times, the same could be said of the presence of Matthew Fisher.
Fisher's Test career so far amounts to eight days across four years and three months. In between whiles, he's undergone a back-stress fracture, a move from boyhood club Yorkshire to Surrey, and the loss of his pace development contract in 2023. But even that upheaval pales compared to the turbulent circumstances of each of his two caps.
Fisher's debut, in Bridgetown against West Indies back in 2022, came off the back of a chastening Ashes series. James Anderson and Stuart Broad had been turfed out for that Caribbean tour, which was led by Paul Collingwood as caretaker following the unceremonious dumping of Chris Silverwood as coach, and Ashley Giles as managing director.
There have been fewer sackings after the latest Ashes debacle - a tour which Fisher himself joined from the second Test onwards as an injury replacement for Mark Wood - but the situation is somehow less clear and more febrile. And here Fisher is again, in amidst the rubble, trying to get by. Not necessarily a man for a crisis, just a man who always happens to be there for a crisis.
Typically, Fisher's strongest impressions for international honours have come on the periphery. He was a bit-part presence on both Ashes tours in 2021-22 and four years later, and proved the perfect background NPC: ever-willing to supplement the main players, be it though net bowling or offering a challenge in practice matches. And, thus, he has been folded into the subsequent rebuilds because he has not disgraced himself.
Yet, there was a cruelty to Fisher being chucked into the deep end in 2022 on a lifeless Bridgetown pitch, in the looming shadows of Anderson and Broad. His second cap - earned as much for another strong winter impression as for 31 Division One dismissals for Surrey last summer, and 18 at the start of this one - is playing out on a docile Kia Oval surface. It's been a similarly thankless task, not that the 27-year old would see it that way.
He had some reward in the first innings, a shift of 23.2 overs bringing 2 for 63, with a fortuitous tickle down the leg side from Devon Conway bringing his first dismissal in four years. He is currently wicketless in the second innings, having sent down 12 of England's 56 overs on Friday. He has little to show for the fact that only Glenn Phillips (to whom Fisher has an economy rate of 4.28 in this match) has been able to get him away, so far as New Zealand's top eight batters are concerned.
However, it was Fisher's weaker suit that brought him the most joy. A maiden half-century had him walking back into the England dressing-room admitting batting on this pitch was more fun than bowling on it.
His unbeaten 50, the majority of which came in a 53-run last-wicket stand with Baker, cut down England's deficit enough for them to dream of a manageable fourth-innings chase - a prospect which had ramped up after New Zealand were reduced to 28 for 2 . The partnership comprised both Fisher and Baker's first runs in Tests, with the former scoreless from the five balls he faced in that 2022 West Indies Test ... and still to be dismissed in the format. The pair had started the week working together on the bowling machine at Surrey's indoor school.
Upon reaching his fifty - his third in first-class cricket - Fisher looked up to the heavens and blew a kiss to acknowledge his late father, Philip, who passed away in 2012. Fisher was 14 at the time, a year before he made a historic debut for Yorkshire.
He had pointed skywards in 2022 after removing John Campbell as his maiden Test dismissal with his second delivery in the format. And here was another chance to credit the man who had cultivated his love and aptitude for the game.
"It's Father's Day on Sunday," said Fisher. "Anyone that's lost a parent quite young, it's not easy. I miss him every day, and it was nice to have that moment really, where family are there. It's always been tough for mom.
"He's always with me; he would throw millions of balls at me down at my local club. It's kind of all come off. And to get a fifty today, I know he'd be really proud."
It was undoubtedly the only silver lining, on a second successive chastening day for an England team thrown together by circumstance rather than design. Many of them, like wicketkeeper James Rew who had a tough time behind the stumps, seem destined to leave this Test with little more than the pain of their part in a series-leveling defeat. Fisher, at least, will be leaving with something.