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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Warne-Murali trophy? Naah!

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of test cricket between Australia and Sri Lanka (lest we forget, they've played the grand total of eight series in this period), there is a proposal by Sri Lanka's cricket board to name a trophy after the two spinning legends.

I have a few [better, imho!] suggestions. If they wanted to use legendary spinners, then why not name it the McIntyre-Dharmasena trophy? If they wanted to celebrate batting under-achievers in tests, why not name it the Law (avg. infinity)-Nawaz (Test batting avg. of 99) trophy? If they had to celebrate pleasing batting, then they could have named it the Waugh (Mark, not Steve! Are you serious?!) - De Silva trophy? They could also name it the 'Audi' trophy in honour of Mark Waugh's four ducks in a row against Sri Lanka (facing a total of 12 balls) and pocket a nice sponsorship from Volkswagen in the bargain! To honour two bowlers with dubious actions, may I suggest the Mura-Lee trophy?

Labels: aravinda de silva, australia, humour, mark waugh, murali, sri lanka, warne

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:44 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Good timing Mark, as usual. Pity about the content though

A couple of days after the Indian team exited the World Cup, Mark Waugh referred to Sunil Gavaskar's remarks on Aussie behaviour and David Hookes in his weekly column for the Sun-Herald.

Most of what he said was pretty identical to Ricky Ponting's outburst against Gavaskar. The problem was that while dismissing the tendency to keep referring to Australian cricketers' behaviour as stereotyping, he went on to do the same for sub-continental cricketers. First he said

One of the hardest things in cricket is shedding a title. A batsman described as "gritty" finds it a hell of a task to be acknowledged for other traits. The Aussies face the same struggle because sledging is what the media and critics home in on.

Then he went on to over-generalize on sub-continental teams using runners, substitutes, tampering with balls, playing for individual records (shades of Matthew Hayden circa 2004 here), etc.

The Australian teams I played for, and those I've watched since retiring, play hard but fair. They play within the rules while other teams, especially those from the subcontinent, don't mind pushing the rules.

I cite such things as their preparedness to call for runners when maybe the batsman doesn't warrant one, or by fielding specialist fieldsmen as substitutes, as not being in the spirit of the game. And then there's examples of ball tampering.

The difference between many teams is that Australia, South Africa and the Kiwis want to win as a team, so they play hard, whereas players from the subcontinent appear happy to play for individual performances, though with Tom Moody as their coach the Sri Lankans are developing some Aussie-style confidence.

It's sad that Waugh failed to realize even after proof-reading (or maybe he just pockets the money without caring for what his ghost-writer spits out) that he was contradicting himself. Maybe he was extrapolating to show us what stereotyping actually meant.

So while he got his timing spot on, the content left a lot to be desired.

The larger issue though remains about what the BCCI and India's players need to do to make sure that they don't continue to be laughed at about their on-field performances.

Labels: australia, gavaskar, india, mark waugh, waugh

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:16 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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