The numbers behind dropped catches and missed stumpings

Charles Davis in Cricinfo 

For all its bewildering array of data, cricket statistics still has a few blind spots. One of the most obvious is in the area of missed chances, where there have been few extensive studies. Gerald Brodribb in Next Man In mentioned that statistician RH Campbell estimated that 30% of catches were missed in Tests in the 1920s. I have seen a figure of more than 30 dropped catches by West Indies in Australia in 1968-69, a team plagued by poor fielding. But really basic questions like "Overall, what percentage of chances are dropped?" lack answers.

For a number of years I have collected all the missed chances I could find in ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball texts for Test matches. Since the site does not always use standard terms to describe missed chances, and different ball-by-ball commentators have their own ways of expressing themselves, I searched the text for 40 or more words and phrases that might indicate a miss, from "drop" and "dolly" to "shell", "grass" and "hash". The process generally flagged about 100 to 200 lines in the commentary for each Test, which I then searched manually to identify real chances. For some Tests, I also confirmed data by checking match reports and other ball-by-ball sources.

While the commentary goes back to 1999, the textual detail can be patchy in the early years. I logged missed chances from late 2000 onwards, but consider that data to be substantially complete only from 2003. I have compiled a list of over 4000 missed chances in Tests from this century; about a third of all Tests (635) are represented.

Unavoidably, there are caveats. Sometimes opinions may vary as to whether a chance should be considered a miss. I take a hard line: "half", "technical" and "academic" chances are included, and I try to include any chances where the fielder failed to touch the ball but should have done so, if they can be identified. Edges passing between the wicketkeeper and first slip are considered chances even if no one has touched the ball. Since 2005, I have divided chances into two categories, "normal" and "difficult", according to how they are described. About half fall into each category.

There will always be uncertainty about some dropped catches, as there is always the possibility that some others have been overlooked. However, as long as the collection method is as consistent and exhaustive as possible, I would argue that a great majority of misses have been identified and that the data can be collated into useful statistics.

So back to the original question: how many chances are dropped? The answer is about one-quarter; typically seven missed chances per Test. Here is a table showing missed chances by country.

Percentage of catches and stumpings missed from 2003 to 2015

Fielding team	2003-2009	2010-2015
New Zealand	23.6%	21.4%
South Africa	20.9%	21.6%
Australia	23.2%	21.8%
England	25.5%	24.8%
West Indies	30.5%	25.4%
Sri Lanka	25.3%	26.8%
India	24.6%	27.2%
Pakistan	30.8%	30.2%
Zimbabwe	27.1%	31.9%
Bangladesh	33.3%	33.1%

The difference between the top three countries in the last five years is not significant; however, there are more substantial differences down the list. Generally, Bangladesh have had the weakest catching record since they started in Test cricket, although there are recent signs of improvement. Other countries have had fluctuating fortunes. West Indies had a miss rate of over 30% from 2003 to 2009, but have tightened up their game in the last couple of years. India have seen a rate of 33% in 2013 fall to 23% in 2015, and Sri Lanka have also improved their catching significantly in just the last two years.

In some years, countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have seen their rates drop below 20%; the best single-year result was 16.9% by South Africa in 2013, when they were the No. 1-ranked team in Tests. In good years, the proportion of dropped catches rated as "difficult" generally increases; good teams still miss the hard ones but drop fewer easy ones. Typically, two-thirds of Australia's missed chances are rated as difficult, but the same applies to only one-third of Bangladesh's missed chances.

The lucky

As a batsman's innings progresses, the odds of him offering a chance increase. About 72% of batsmen reaching 50 do so without giving a chance, but the percentage for century-makers is 56% in the first 100 runs. Only 33% of double-centuries are chanceless in the first 200 runs. The highest absolutely chanceless innings is 374 by Mahela Jayawardene in Colombo; Lara's 400 in Antigua contained a couple of "academic" chances.

The most expensive missed chance since the start of 2000 is 297 runs for Inzamam-ul-Haq, who made 329 after being missed on 32 in Lahore in 2002. Historically there have been more expensive misses: Mark Taylor (334 not out) was dropped on 18 and 27 by Saeed Anwar, and there was a missed stumping on 40 for Len Hutton (364) in 1938. Perhaps even luckier was Kumar Sangakkara, who made 270 in Bulawayo after being dropped on 0. Sachin Tendulkar was dropped on 0 when he made his highest score, 248 not out in Dhaka. Mike Hussey gave a possible chance first ball at the Gabba in 2010, and went on to make 195. Graham Gooch was famously dropped by Kiran More when on 36 at Lord's in 1990. He went on to make 333.

The data turns up four batsmen who have been dropped five times in an innings: one was Andy Blignaut, whose 84 not out in Harare in 2005 included an extremely rare hat-trick of dropped catches; Zaheer Khan was the unhappy bowler. (There was also a hat-trick of missed chances at Old Trafford in 1972, when two batsmen survived against Geoff Arnold.) The others who have been missed five times are Hashim Amla (253 in Nagpur, 2010), Taufeeq Umar (135 in St Kitts, 2011) and Kane Williamson (242 not out in Wellington, 2014). Nothing in this century quite matches the seven or eight missed catches (reports vary) off George Bonnor when he made 87 in Sydney in 1883, or six misses off Bill Ponsford in his 266 at The Oval in 1934 (as recorded by veteran scorer Bill Ferguson). Wavell Hinds was dropped twice at the MCG in 2000, and still made a duck.

The batsman with most reprieves in the study period is Virender Sehwag, missed 68 times, just one ahead of Sangakkara. About 37% of the chances Sehwag offered were dropped, which is well above average and probably a testament to the power of his hitting.
The unlucky

Broadly, spin bowlers suffer more from dropped catches and (of course) missed stumpings. Chances at short leg, along with caught and bowled, have the highest miss rates among fielding positions, and these positions happen to feature more strongly among spinners' wickets than pace bowlers'. Overall, 27% of chances off spin bowlers are missed, as against 23% of chances off pace bowlers.

In the study period, the bowlers with the most missed chances in Tests are Harbhajan Singh (99) and Danish Kaneria (93). Harbhajan has had 26 chances missed at short leg alone. Bear in mind that these bowlers' careers are not fully covered; the data for about 10% of Harbhajan's career is not available to analyse. Pace bowlers with the most misses, as of January 2016, are Jimmy Anderson (89) and Stuart Broad (85).

Spare a thought for James Tredwell, who has played only two Tests but suffered ten missed chances, including seven on debut, the most for any bowler since the start of 2000. Most were very difficult, with three of them missed by the bowler himself. Also worth mentioning is Zulfiqar Babar, who has had 30 chances missed in his Test career and only 28 catches (and stumpings) taken.

At the other end of the scale, Adil Rashid has had eight catches taken off his bowling with no misses (as of August 2016). Neil Wagner of New Zealand has had only seven misses out of 63 chances, a rate of 11%.

Two bowlers have had catches missed off their first ball in Test cricket: David Warner (Dean Brownlie dropped by James Pattinson, Brisbane, 2011) and RP Singh (Shoaib Malik dropped by Anil Kumble, Faisalabad, 2006).

There is an intriguing case from 1990. Against West Indies in Lahore, Wasim Akram took four wickets in five balls: W, W, 1, W, W. In a surviving scorebook, the single, by Ian Bishop, is marked as a dropped catch at mid-on. If so, Akram came within a hair's breadth of five wickets in five balls, since the batsmen crossed, and Bishop did not face again. (Wisden, it should be noted, says that the catch was out of reach.)

The guilty

When it comes to catching, some positions are much more challenging than others. That will come as no surprise, but putting some numbers to this is an interesting exercise. The table below shows the miss rate for different field positions.
 

hances by position (December 2008 to January 2016)

Position	Chances	% Missed
Keeper (ct)	2188	15%
Stumping	254	36%
Slip	2062	29%
Gully	404	30%
Third man	36	17%
Point	371	29%
Cover	319	23%
Mid-off	253	20%
Bowler	378	47%
Mid-on	340	22%
Midwicket	455	23%
Short leg	518	38%
Square leg	286	19%
Fine leg	170	30%

The highest miss rates are seen for caught and bowled, and for catches at short leg. Bowlers lack the luxury of setting themselves up for catches, while short leg has the least time of any position to react to a ball hit well. Many of the chances there are described as half-chances or technical. Slips catches are twice as likely to be dropped as wicketkeepers' catches, a measure of the advantage of gloves.

However, it would be unwise to read too much into the table above. Slip fielders or short-leg fielders are not inferior to those at mid-off; they get much more difficult chances. In the period of the study, Alastair Cook missed more chances than any other non-wicketkeeper, some 62 misses, but since many of his misses came at short leg, his miss rate doesn't look so bad.

While comparing lapse rates of different fielders is risky, it is worth mentioning Graeme Smith, whose drop rate of only 14% is the best among long-serving players by a considerable margin. Between August 2012 and February 2013, Smith took 25 catches and recorded no missed chances. Other slip fielders with outstanding catching records include Andrew Strauss and Ross Taylor on 20%, Michael Clarke on 21%, and Ricky Ponting on 22%. Elsewhere in the field, Warner at one stage took 20 consecutive chances that came to him.

Of those who have recorded more drops than catches, Umar Gul leads the list, with 11 catches and 14 misses. In 2014, Mushfiqur Rahim missed ten consecutive chances that came his way. Oddly enough, he caught his next 13 chances. Kevin Pietersen came to Test cricket with a fine catching reputation, but he dropped the first seven chances that came to him. He then caught his next 16 chances. The most missed chances in a match for one team, in this data set, is 12 by India against England in Mumbai in 2006. The most missed chances in an innings is nine by Pakistan against England in Faisalabad in 2005, and also by Bangladesh against Pakistan in Dhaka in 2011. In Karachi in 2009, Mahela Jayawardene (240) was dropped on 17 and 43, Thilan Samaraweera (231) was dropped on 73 and 77, and Younis Khan (313) was dropped on 92. The combined cost of all the missed chances in the match was 1152 runs, or 684 runs based on "first" drops off each of the batsmen.

There is some evidence of "contagious" butterfingers in teams. In the second Test of the 1985 series in Colombo, India dropped seven catches against Sri Lanka on the first day, on which the only wicket to fall was thanks to a run-out. India also dropped six catches in the space of ten overs in Rawalpindi in 2004, five of them coming in the first hour of the fourth day. It is rare enough for six chances to be offered at all in the space of ten overs at all, let alone to see all of them missed.

Behind the stumps

Here is some data on the miss rates, including stumpings, of various wicketkeepers of the 21st century. Not all are listed, but those with particularly low or high drop rates are given. 

Missed chances by keepers

	Chances	%Miss
Mark Boucher	364	10%
BJ Watling	119	11%
Tatenda Taibu	57	11%
AB de Villiers	94	11%
Adam Gilchrist	357	12%
Kamran Akmal	203	20%
Sarfraz Ahmed	63	21%
Dinesh Karthik	50	22%
Adnan Akmal	77	22%
Mushfiqur Rahim	86	32%

The wicketkeeper with the most misses is MS Dhoni with 66 (18%). In his defence, Dhoni had to deal with a high percentage of spin bowling, which presents a much greater challenge for keepers. Miss rates for leading wicketkeepers off spinners average around 30%, for both catches and stumpings, but it is only 10% for catches off pace bowlers. It can certainly be argued that keeping to spinners is the true test of a keeper.

It is not uncommon for keepers to start with a bang but fade later in their careers. Boucher, Watling, Gilchrist and de Villiers all had miss rates in single digits earlier in their careers. Gilchrist's miss rate rose in the last couple of years before his retirement. Others with very low rates, who did not qualify for the table, include Peter Nevill and Chris Read, on 7%. Read, to my eye, was one of the best modern wicketkeepers, but he did not get very many opportunities since he was unable to score enough runs to hold his place.


A short history of dropped catches

In addition to the data for the 21st century I have gathered data from other periods of Test history, using scorebooks that recorded dropped catches. The best sources are scorebooks by Bill Ferguson in the 1910s and 1920s, and by Bill Frindall from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. I have also used a limited number of other sources, including scores by Irving Rosenwater and some by Pakistan TV scorers. I have extracted data from about 200 Test scores in all, dating from before 1999.

Again, there must be caveats. We cannot be sure that the judging of dropped catches was on the same terms throughout, and we cannot be sure of the effect of TV replays on these assessments. I would say, however, that in the case of Frindall we have a meticulous observer with a very consistent style over multiple decades.

Once again, it would be unwise to read too much into each little blip in the data, but in general there is a trend toward lower rates of missed chances. The trend would probably be steeper if the data was limited to Australia and England, as the recent data includes countries such as Bangladesh that have had little or no coverage in earlier decades.

I might add an opinion from decades of observation: I believe that the greatest area of improvement has been with weaker fielders. Today everyone, including those with limited skills, has to do extensive fielding drills and take that part of the game very seriously. This has been one effect of the one-day game. In past decades many took fielding seriously. Jack Hobbs, Don Bradman and Neil Harvey worked hard at it, and I doubt if any player today works as hard on fielding as Colin Bland did in the 1960s (Bland would spend hours picking up and throwing a ball at a single stump: his record of run-outs is superior to that of anyone today). However, there were also players who did much less work on their fielding skills. In the modern game there is nowhere to hide, and everyone must put in the training effort. As a result, overall standards have risen.

Cricket - Moving past a howler

 

 Nicholas Hogg

Shane Warne drops Kevin Pietersen, and the 2005 Ashes  © Getty Images

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Last season I was bowling at a former England player - not a common occurrence, I can assure you - when he snicked a late outswinger to first slip. A photographer freeze-famed the moment: hands cupped, the ball about to be grasped. The photographer didn't catch the ricochet off his palms, the head-in-hands aftermath from bowler and fielder. No slip catch is easy, and I felt more sympathy than anger towards my team-mate. I knew that the drop would haunt us both, two amateurs missing a rare chance to bag an ex-international.

Momentary yet lasting, the howler is a lapse of batting, bowling or fielding - and we must add but discuss no further in fear of this article turning into a thesis, the umpire howler - a singular fail that can flush an entire game, or even a series, down the drain. But no one is perfect, and no player wins every battle. Here, NFL coaching icon Vince Lombardi encouragingly reminds us, "It's not whether you get knocked down but whether you get up." 

Or, if you're a gifted spin bowler, win the next series.

Just before lunch on the final day at The Oval in 2005, Kevin Pietersen edged Brett Lee to first slip. Pietersen was on 15. The catch, a ball that would be snapped up in practice, is shelled by no other than Shane Warne. Pietersen marched on to a grand total of 158 and claimed the Ashes, that mythical little urn that, along with the cricket ball, had just passed through Warne's hands.

And he was hardly the first to fail so spectacularly. In 1902, the moustachioed offspinner Fred Tate made his England debut at Old Trafford, a game that England had to win to keep the Ashes alive. When Joe Darling skied one to deep square leg, it was poor Fred who stuck out his hand and helped it to the ground. Darling's 20 more runs proved vital in a low-scoring game, a second innings in which Tate went in at No. 11 with England needing 8 to win.

Tate scored 4. He sobbed in the changing room and sobbed at the train station. Although his son Maurice would achieve England glory, his father ended his days a broken man, a publican who harangued his few customers with the tale of his infamous drop.

It may not have been a series-losing moment, but when Kings XI Punjab beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in Mohali this year, they had two players to thank: David Miller and his 38-ball century, and Virat Kohli for the top-edged skier he spilled. Victory burst through his hands, hit him in the mouth, and landed on the turf. Kohli deflected the press from his howler by saying, "It was one of the best innings that has ever been seen in the IPL." And if it helped him move on from the horror drop, then let him praise - it's better than crying all the way home, opening a pub, and then dying a pauper.

A player's conscience, whether he forgets or regrets, must affect recovery from grave mistakes. I wonder if Geoff Boycott spent sleepless nights ruing his dreadful run out of Nottingham favourite Derek Randall at Trent Bridge in 1977. As Randall trudges off the turf, Boycott covers his face with his gloves. In mock shame to appease the crowd or genuine grief, one must take his word. "I have never felt so completely wretched on a cricket field," he later wrote. And he did go on to make a ton, "the finest I have ever played", which in Boycott's world equals success, regardless of the result or run-out victim.

In a universe of infinite possibilities, Mark Ramprakash has tucked his bat under his arm, and we're leaping for joy

So, can we fully recover from a howler - without being a sociopath?

US comedian Larry David featured baseball player Bill Buckner in an episode of his hit series Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry, after losing a baseball game by letting the ball through his legs, befriends Buckner at a memorabilia signing - where Buckner, still reviled for a similar fielding error that cost the Boston Red Sox the 1986 World Series, is sitting alone. Larry and Buckner walk the New York streets as passers-by heckle and boo Buckner, mirroring the abuse and death threats he received in life after his costly fluff. But this is TV, and David has written a heroic part for Buckner - he catches a baby thrown from a burning building before the cheering crowd hoist him onto their shoulders.

This may be fiction, yet Buckner also found peace with his howler in reality. In 1990 he returned to a standing ovation from Red Sox fans, and has since formed a double act with Mookie Wilson, the player whose hit he missed.

These examples must be a lesson for those of us who fail. And what player at whatever level can boast never-ending success? Although I have an error-strewn CV of my own - shouldering arms to a ball that took out my middle stump whilst batting to save a match must be top of the table - it's back to the drop of my team-mate that inspired this article.

My coping strategy isn't winning the following series, opening a pub, praising the opposition or moving on with a near-psychopathic ambition, but cosmic philosophy.

In a universe of infinite possibilities, on a planet where sport has conspired to pit the amateur against the professional, my team-mate holds aloft a red sphere, Mark Ramprakash has tucked his bat under his arm, and we're leaping for joy.

The wasted talent of Danish Kaneria

Hassan Cheema in Cricinfo




The spot-fixing saga brought to an end a career that promised much - particularly in its infancy - but came to a cruel if fitting end. I am not talking about Sreesanth but about Danish Kaneria, the rejection of whose appeal could mean curtains for the man who was supposed to be Pakistan's next great spinner.



It's not that he didn't achieve much - after all, he finished with more Test wickets than any spinner in Pakistan's history - but how he did it. Somehow, one gets the feeling, that even if his career had wound up in different circumstances, there would not have been much celebration and nostalgia.


His likely sporting end calls to mind not just his own achievements and failings, but that of his generation. Pakistan's love affair with inexperienced youth reached its zenith in 1992, when a team comprising the likes of Inzamam-ul-Haq, Aamer Sohail and Moin Khan (each of whom had played less than 15 ODIs before the tournament started) walked off the MCG as world champions. It reinforced the national team's belief in inducting players far before they were ready, almost to save them from the much-maligned domestic first-class scene.



But as one generation gave way to another, there was a belated realisation that this induction required a national team full of leaders. The '92 generation succeeded because they came in with Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Saleem Malik and Wasim Akram to guide them. One could argue that even the most celebrated players among those who debuted in the mid-to-late-90s (Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Yousuf) could all have been so much more than they ended up being, however many great moments they provided. But even they can't hold a candle to the lot that debuted at the turn of the century - with Kaneria being probably the most obvious example among them.



It all goes back to a fateful day in 2003, when failure in the World Cup meant that the newly appointed chief selector, Aamer Sohail, brought the axe down upon the leaders of that team. Some would return, others (like Wasim, Waqar Younis and Saeed Anwar) wouldn't. And thus progress in many a career was ceased.



Among the 1999-2003 generation was a supremely fit fast bowler with natural outswing, who could bowl yorkers at will. And yet Mohammad Sami would finish as one of the worst bowlers of all time (statistically, at least). Similarly, Shoaib Malik threatened to be a genuine batting allrounder in the middle of the last decade, but is now more famous for who he married than anything he did on the field. Even Kamran Akmal, now the butt of all jokes, was once a wicketkeeper-batsman who could save and win matches, and was called by Ian Chappell "the best wicketkeeper in the world" in a piece of commentary that haunts many a Pakistani to this day. But no one better illustrates the unfulfilled potential of his generation quite like Kaneria does.



I was reminded of something Ramon Calderon, the then-president of Real Madrid, said in a typical outburst. He called Jose Maria "Guti" Gutierrez "the most promising 30-year old in the world". Guti was a star and vice-captain of the team at the time, and was labelled by Calderon as "the eternal promise". With half his career over, he had still not reached maturity or consistency in his play.



Those words could very well be used for Kaneria. He came to prominence as one of the stars of the Pakistan Under-19 team that reached the semi-final of the 2000 World Cup. His debut came later the same year, and in it he outsmarted Marcus Trescothick and had him stumped with a googly that was never picked. It wasn't half-bad for a first international wicket.



Kaneria, quite clearly, had much tangible talent. Here was a guy who could spin the ball, had natural bounce, and all the variations that a Pakistani legspinner is supposed to have. But the "intangible talent", whatever is happening upstairs, never seemed apparent. He, to cite the immortal words Shane Warne used to describe another spinner, ended up playing not 61 Tests but the same Test 61 times.



As his career progressed, Kaneria became synonymous with expensive wickets. He was judged on the work of his predecessors, and didn't come out well. Abdul Qadir, Tauseef Ahmed, Iqbal Qasim, Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain combined to pick up 49 five-fors, of which 11 cost more than a hundred runs each. For Kaneria, nine of his 15 five-fors cost triple figures; furthermore, three of the six five-fors where he conceded double figures were against Bangladesh, in 2001 and 2002. And so he became, not unjustly, defined as an expensive wicket-taker who succeeded against the weaker teams. In fact, if his record versus Bangladesh is excluded, his Test average balloons to 37 (the same as Ashley Giles and Paul Harris - neither of whom could be considered good enough for their country to discard the likes of Saqlain and Mushtaq for). This explains why he is the least loved of Pakistan's recent spinners despite being the most successful among them.



It could have been so different, though. Rewind back to 2005. Kaneria started the year with a typically expensive seven-for in Sydney, but gained strength from it, as he went on tour to India, and succeeded where many Pakistani legspinners had failed before. He took 19 wickets (Sami was second-highest with ten) as Pakistan managed to draw the away series. Later in the year, Kaneria was the Robin to Shoaib Akhtar's Batman as Pakistan pulled down the most celebrated English team for two decades.



It should have been the year Kaneria went from a promise to something bigger and better; instead, the following summer he reverted to type. On the England tour that became the beginning of the end for Inzamam and Bob Woolmer's team (and also the tour that started Kamran Akmal's irreversible decline), Kaneria was expected to be the leader of the attack in the absence of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif; instead he went for over 50 runs a wicket and got back on track in an underwhelming career. Of course, mere numbers do not always signify the quality of a performance. From that England tour onwards, the inability of Kaneria to become the bowler he was meant to be had much to do with the support he was granted.



With Akmal being as comfortable with gloves as OJ Simpson, Kaneria missed out on 14 wickets just due to his keeper's spills. Regardless of how those wickets would have changed the context of those matches, or Kaneria's confidence, the stats reveal how his career was affected: over those 21 Tests he took 92 wickets at 38.2; if those 14 catches had been taken he would have averaged 33.1 (assuming he had conceded the same number of runs), an eminently respectable number for a modern spinner. While Kaneria has to take the blame for his lack of evolution, one has to concede that Kamran Akmal contributed. That man has a lot to answer for.



Pakistan has mastered the art of wasting raw, supremely talented kids. Throwing them into the national team when they don't understand themselves or their skill set has contributed to this. Kaneria and his ilk led Pakistan to where they are today. In trying to minimise the amount of wasted talent, Pakistan over-corrected and Team Misbah was born. Now Pakistan can go into a Test match with their youngest player being 27-year-old Asad Shafiq and no one bats an eyelid. It would seem that after decades of teaching kids how to swim by throwing them into the deep end, Pakistan may have learned their lesson. Maybe, just maybe, some good has come out of Kaneria and Sami's careers.