Former Pakistan skipper Ramiz Raja believes that England will pay the price for their drop catches. England has already fluffed four catches in the ongoing Test match. In fact, Ramiz noted that England had bungled the same number of catches in the first Test match against Pakistan at Lord’s.
England had gone on to lose that match. Thus, Ramiz believes that England might well go on to lose this match as well. They say Catches win you matches and England has had its issues with the slip catching.
Both England and India have had their issues in the slip cordon.
In fact, England has dropped 81 catches since January 2016 and 44 of those catches have been dropped in the slip cordon.
Meanwhile, Dawid Malan gave two lives to Virat Kohli in the first innings. Malan dropped Kohli twice when he was on 21 and 51. Kohli went on to make 149 in the first dig and England had to pay the hefty price.
Even James Anderson had rued the miss chances in the slip cordon.
“The personnel in the team has changed quite a lot, so it’s been difficult to get a set cordon. But we’re just going to have to keep working harder and harder, pushing ourselves to be better, because you can’t keep creating the chances we are and not taking them. You can’t drop Virat Kohli on 21 (Anderson was the bowler) because he’s one of the best players in the world, and he’ll capitalize on that – which he did,” Anderson had said.
On the other hand, India has also had their issues with the slip catching. Ajinkya Rahane who is India’s best slip fielder had dropped Keaton Jennings. Furthermore, Shikhar Dhawan also fluffed a couple of chances in the second innings.
Ramiz Raja took to his Twitter account to share his thought on England’s slip catching. Raja post read, “England’s been on a “drop spree” this season at home.. dropped 4 against Pakistan in the slips at Lords-lost the game -and so far 4 in this Test against India and probably will lose again”.
Here is Ramiz Raja’s post.
England’s been on a “drop spree” this season at home.. dropped 4 against Pakistan in the slips at Lords-lost the game -and so far 4 in this Test against India and probably will lose again..
— Ramiz Raja (@iramizraja) August 3, 2018