Rahul Dravid gets the catches record

Predicting events in cricket can make you look like a bit of a goose. Think about a pitch report analysis offered by the TV commentary team at the start of play. The 'expert' tends to think that what they're saying makes a reasonable amount of sense and have a fair amount of confidence in the prediction succeeding. Us, gullible viewers, fall hook, line and sinker. But like we've seen, "experts" who declare pitches as having something in it for the bowlers look so sheepish (although they're never questioned on their judgement!) when the score reads 340/2 at stumps or when a pitch pronounced a "batting beauty" produces a first innings score of 201 all out in a ODI game.

Over 4.5 years ago, I made a prediction on this blog, that Dravid would have the world record for most catches by a fielder by the time he retired.

I am willing to stick my neck out and say that that he would have the world record when he hangs up his boots, with stiff competition from Fleming. In his last 40 tests, Dravid has taken 61 catches and 33 catches in his last 20 tests. Assuming he plays on till he is 36, which is 4 years away, he'd have played another 40 odd tests which means another 65-70 catches. That'd definitely put him within reach of Mark Waugh's current record of 181. It is certainly not an impossibility.

Today, Dravid caught Tim McIntosh to go past Mark Waugh's record. You could say it was so bloody obvious that Dravid would get past the record, but I made the call, and you didn't, did you?! :)

Dravid's fielding career can be roughly divided into two phases. For the first 4-5 years of his test career, he used to primarily stand at short-leg or silly-point and he excelled in those positions. In those first few years, his catches per innings was 0.63. After that, since 2000, it is 0.78. You could attribute it to multiple factors - a better quality bowling lineup, improving his catching technique, more opportunities (since by then Azhar had been shunted out, Tendulkar had moved out of sight and as captain, Ganguly perhaps felt more comfortable from other positions). But at the same time, VVS Laxman had also started making a mark as a slip fielder, Sehwag too joined in a few years later and over the last couple of years, Tendulkar is back in the slips. So there has been "competition".

The three current players who have a chance are Ricky Ponting (148), Jacques Kallis (147) and Mahela Jayawardene (142). Surprisingly though, Ponting (0.575) and Kallis (0.590) both have rather poor dismissals/innings records. As the youngest among the 3, Mahela is most likely to get past Dravid, considering he averages 0.82 catches an innings in the last 100 innings and he has a lot of opportunities to take catches standing at slip to Murali, Mendis and Vaas. But he'll need to play something like 3-4 to get there (assuming Dravid ends up with ~ 190, that means Mahela needs 48 catches, which would take something like 60 innings in 30 tests across 3.5-4 years) I don't know if that's too likely.

Labels: catching, dravid, fielding, mark waugh, record

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:10 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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A stats post

VVS Laxman got his second test wicket, the first being Adam Sanford, in 2002.

Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble combined for the 51st time in test cricket. They're now level with Taylor & Warne. Murali and Jayawardene have the record, with 63 dismissals.

PS: I really hope India bat out the next 1.5 days at Eden Gardens, ensuring that Pakistan's bowlers are not fit enough to take the field at Bangalore. The escape scripted by Misbah, Akmal and Sami would have given them a lot of motivation, so declaring would be a pretty poor idea.

Labels: catching, dravid, fielding, india, jayawardene, kumble, laxman, murali, pakistan, statistic, taylor, warne

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:09 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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A view of the future?

Yes, long time no post. But hey, there were one-dayers on! Those are never interesting to write about.

Except when you watch these little skirmishes within the structure of the game.

Like Kevin Pietersen (27, batting avg. > 50 in tests and one-dayers) facing Piyush Chawla (18, 15 wickets from 9 games, including Pietersen twice in successive games). You immediately know this is a 'rivalry' we should be seeing for the next 8-10 years at least.

Ditto when he bowls to Ian Bell or Alastair Cook. The case is the same when Stuart Broad or Monty Panesar bowl to Yuvraj Singh or Dhoni or Dinesh Karthik.

It is in fact sad that Yuvraj is being referred to in the future tense. It has been seven years since he made his international debut. By now, he should have got a permanent slot in the test middle order, by capitalizing on the absence of Tendulkar and Ganguly during last year. Instead, he toured West Indies and made 104 runs in 7 innings.

Akash Chopra must probably be cursing himself and the selectors for spotting him only when there're tough series against Pakistan and Australia coming up. He's in the India 'A' squad which plays South Africa's 'A' team at home. One-day discards Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina are in that squad as well.

What would the Indian team in England give for Yuvraj, Kaif, Dinesh Karthik, Raina, Rohit Sharma and Uthappa manning the in-field? I've never seen such poor catching by an Indian team. I'd never expect a team consisting of Ganguly, Dravid, Munaf and Powar to be athletic. The least I thought they'd do is to at least hold the catches that come their way! That isn't the case.

So the best option is have Ganguly, Munaf, etc. 'injure' themselves every now and then so that Uthappa and Rohit Sharma can at least improve the standard of fielding. Alternately, have Powar and Munaf bowl in tandem so that the fielding damage only happens during one section of the innings!

Labels: catching, fielding, future, pietersen, piyush chawla, sloth

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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