In cricket history, we have seen many clusters, and many game-changing aspects yet we can’t say that they always affect the gameplay as sometimes the luck comes in and brings a great turn-over in the match. Some say that dropped catches have a great effect on the match and the team making such a mistake ends up losing the respective match or even the whole series.
From the fielding perspective, not only catches dropped but also many other characteristics like missed run-outs, imprecise fielding position, and missed stumpings by the wicketkeeper have an equal influence on the course of the game. Essential catches win matches, and dropped once may or may not ruin the game.
Cricket history has encountered many such cases be in T20, ODI, or Test cricket and so one can consider fielding an important aspect that requires a lot of effort and concentration by the team as a whole.
We now take a look at the top cricketers who dropped many catches in International cricket history.
Umar Gul
One of Pakistan’s former fast pace bowlers, Umar Gul leads the title of the cricketer with the weakest catching record. In the overall record, it has been listed that Umar has dropped 14 catches and collected 11 other ones. He was held responsible for the course of the team’s poor fielding against Australia in the ICC World T20 Championship which caused the defeat of the Pakistanis with 34 runs.
As it is said, ” Catches win matches”, eliminating players who make such mistakes of dropping essential catches isn’t a wrong thing to do. It happened once with Umar Gul when he was omitted from the T20 squad as he failed to recover from his shoulder injury, the other reason being his drop catch tactics.
No doubt, Umar Gul was one of the best in the bowling line-up for the Pakistani team yet again came one of his biggest regrets in the 2011 World Cup against India where he failed to contribute his performance. He had been outstanding in the group stages taking 14 wickets in 7 matches but in this game against India, he was swayed away by the batting of Suresh Raina and Virender Sehwag who shattered five 4’s simultaneously leading to giving away 69 runs in just 8 overs of his bowling.
Later, in an interview, Umar Gul mentioned his dejection of not being able to perform in that match against India and how it hurt him. He also added up by saying that Pakistan deserved to win that match as they were in a very good form throughout the tournament.
Mushfiqur Rahim
Former captain of the Bangladesh national cricket team, Mushfiqur Rahim missed ten consecutive chances of succession catches which record some of the most important catches of a batsman. Further mentioning the full details of the dropped catch, let’s check them thoroughly.
The stats of online records from 2021 tell about the fluctuating fortunes of Mushfiqur Rahim who has dropped three important catch as a wicketkeeper. In the 8th match of the Asia Cup, 2014 which was held on March 04 at Mirpur Shahid Afridi shawled away victory from the Bangladesh team on the 2nd the last couple of balls of the ODI cricket match.
Shahid Afridi known as his own best man blasted off 59 runs off just 25 balls standing with 69 runs partnership with Fawad Alam in the second innings of the semi-final game. Bangladesh’s bowling and not up to par fielding let them down in the stadium, they were baggy on the boundary and Mushfiqur Rahim dropped the catch of Afridi on 52 runs in the crucial end moments and hence the Bangladesh team failed to barricade 300 plus run chase for the first time in four consecutive attempts which was most reprieves.
Kevin Pietersen
Kevin Pietersen, former England team’s International cricket player with right-arm batting and one of his team’s off-spin bowlers. He is also listed among the players with the most catches dropped. He first came to Test cricket with a quality-catching prestige, but unluckily he dropped the first seven to six catches that occurred to him. He then got his hand on catching his next 16 chances while showcasing his fielding skills.
Without hesitation, one could call him a wonderful player due to his excellence and match-turning skills which he perceived by setting up his highest score, correcting his fielding positions, and many more which sometimes turned over the match in England’s favor.
However, in his game against Australia in Adelaide, the over bowled by Peter Siddle gave a chance to Kevin Pietersen to dismiss George Bailey at backward point, but gradually due to his miss rate catches dropped again. Some people started considering him as a player who plays of his own will and so Kevin seemed to not follow the consequences that the team faced later on.
Kevin was one of the leading top-scorer in Test cricket for England but unfortunately, he had to be taken over by another young and determined player, and thus he was replaced in cricket formats.
Also, read: Top 10 cricketers with the most man of the match awards
Kiran More
India toured England for the 1st Test at Lord’s on July 26 – 31, 1990. It was a 5-day match with India winning the toss and electing to field first but being unable to take early wickets and thus the partnership of the English men kept on shooting up. Graham Gooch, the player of the match contributed a massive number of runs 333 off 485 deliveries alongside Allan Lamb who added up 139 runs more.
With such a big total of 653 runs on board with 6 wickets remaining the England team was at ease. The mistake of the Indian wicket-keeper Kiran More by dropping the catch of Graham Gooch at 36 runs in the first innings cost India losing the chance of registering a victory against England in their first Test match.
The Indian team had to pay a high price for losing the game with 247 runs in their first test in England. This was India’s only defeat against the England team as the hosts took over the series by 1-0 and eventually won the series.
Virat Kohli
Captain of the Indian national cricket team, Virat Kohli identified as one of an exemplar of the field tactics of the cricketing standard, show-casing sumptuous performance whether it be with the bat or on the fielding ground with assigning suitable fielding positions not to himself alone therefore including his squad.
He has made many fielding-online records in International cricket history and is rarely missing all their catches even if it is at the backward point or short leg he managed to guard runs for his team taking over third man locus but at the moment his track record in Indian Premier League has steeped vigorously.
Running by its course of the record of the maximum number of catches dropped in the past gone six years of the IPL series tournament, Kohli incarcerates and dominated the rule and is known by quite a handful of remarkable names. In the 2020 edition of IPL, he dropped two catches on KL Rahul which later cost the Royal Challengers Bangalore a large turnover in the game. Overall the recent signs revealed that Virat Kohli dropped an immense number of 15 unraveled catches in this league.
Moving further the Indian captain hasn’t been at his fullest when it came to fielding performance in the T20s since 2019 as he has dropped catches in this format also. No doubt he is known to be one of the finest fielders in cricket, but when we pay attention to the interesting stories of the game statistic, changes in positions happen gradually but it still depends on the attentiveness of the fielder and his body language.
Dropping Matthew Wade, an Australian cricketer in a T20 match which took place in Sydney, and then after several days in a match against England came more drops including Jos Buttler when Kohli wobbled against him for the most important catch when the batsman was on the crease with 76 runs. This was his 6th drop in a T20 match since 2019. He crossed Chris Jordan, a right-arm fast bowler who dropped 5 catches for the England team.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
MS Dhoni former captain of India and wicket-keeper with the highest miss rates as he had to face most spinners’ wickets and it is clear that spin bowlers suffer as their ball hit in different directions with variation in the speed and rotation of the ball.
In 2017, the three T20 match series against Sri Lanka took place in Mumbai. This was in the third T20 in which Mahi dropped a catch to his bowler- Umesh Yadav who was not only disappointed by Dhoni when he left the ball coming to him from the edge but was also fuddled as he didn’t expect such from Dhoni and awaited a prodigy by collecting the ball and dismissing the batsman straight away by disdaining over the extreme position.
Upcoming was the Asia Cup 2018 incident, held in Dubai against Pakistan in which he dropped a catch of Shoaib Malik behind the stumps which rather seemed to be a simple catch. Hardik Pandya was the bowler who bowled a short-length delivery but Malik planned it all to sweep the ball over the third man, unfortunately, the ball landed behind the stumps but had no traction as it was dropped by the wicket-keeper. It then proved out to be costly for both Dhoni and his team but still the outcome served in their favour.
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