Of dropped catches and lost matches

By Shyama Dasgupta

These are days when every bit of misfielding, dropped catch or no-ball is looked at as more than what it is. To many, they are ‘spots’, waiting to be ‘fixed’. To others, these are the uncertainties that make the game glorious.

Twenty20 cricket, however, thrives on supersonic fielding, and when the outcome of every second match is affected by dropped catches, one starts to wonder. No, not wonder if it’s all fixed, but if there’s something about the atmosphere, the breeze, the lights … something in the UAE that makes catching tougher.

Look at Glenn Maxwell, the standout star of the Pepsi IPL 2014. Against Chennai in Punjab’s first match, he was dropped by Ashish Nehra when on 37 and by Samuel Badree in the deep when on 77. He ended on 95 from 43 balls. Kane Richardson didn’t react quickly enough off his own bowling when Punjab played Rajasthan—Maxwell was on 1 at the time, he scored 89 in 45 balls. And then there were Hyderabad, who had David Warner, of all people, dropping a sitter off Maxwell.

In Sharjah, where Maxwell got those lives against Rajasthan and Hyderabad, there does seem to be a problem. In fact, Rajasthan’s Pravin Tambe put down the sort of lobbed chance from Cheteshwar Pujara that resembled a fielder throwing the ball back to the bowler as he walks back to his run-up.

“During the first ten overs, the lights were on in the stadium next door, and the shot came straight out of the lights to Sammy, and he just totally lost it,” explained Tom Moody, the Hyderabad coach, on Tuesday (April 22) night. “Again, Warner is a world-class fielder. I don’t think I have ever seen him drop an outfield catch. As we saw afterwards, he took two similar catches very simply.” George Bailey agreed with Moody that the light from the adjacent stadium—a football ground—was creating problems.

Bailey also felt that the night sky in this part of the world at this time of the year didn’t help. Wriddhiman Saha, the Punjab wicketkeeper, and Rishi Dhawan, their outfielder, called for high catches during the game against Hyderabad, appeared to station themselves in position, but ended up far away from where the ball dropped. “At night, when the ball goes straight up, there’s no background to see it against. Balls are going really high and it’s hard to pick up when it’s coming down,” said Bailey.

And then, of course, there have been the poor fielding efforts. Like in the tournament opener in Abu Dhabi on April 16, when Lasith Malinga, at short fine-leg, reacted to a mishit Jacques Kallis sweep as if a ball coming his way was the last thing he expected in that part of the field.

Catches win matches, goes the old cricket cliché, and Chennai proved that when, between Suresh Raina and Faf du Plessis, three splendid catches helped reduce Delhi Daredevils to 17 for 3 in their chase of 178 on Monday night.

The author is Senior Editor, Wisden India