MUMBAI: The Netherlands' pacer Logan van Beek bowled a full toss which was miscued by Faheem Ashraf of Pakistan towards long off in the T20 World Cup opener in Colombo on February 7.
Even as the ball was in the air, Faheem started praying hard, as he admitted later after the match. Max O'Dowd ran to his right, settled and gripped the ball only for his knee to hit the ground that eventually made the ball pop out of his hands.
At that stage, Pakistan were needing 23 off 11 balls with the last recognised batting pair at the crease. The dropped catch proved dear to the Dutch side as the following four deliveries went for a six, dot, six and four bringing the equation down to five in last over. "Any fan with a brain knows that was the moment that cost us," Dutch pacer Paul van Meekeren later lamented.
The crucial miss meant O'Dowd's Instagram handle was inundated with abuses. O'Dowd confirmed the same while talking to a media outlet and said there were comments that should not have been made to anyone.
The same was the case when former Mumbai all-rounder Shubham Ranjane dropped India captain Suryakumar Yadav on the same day but at a different venue. The USA player failed to latch on to a return catch in the 10th over of the innings at the Wankhede Stadium. Suryakumar was on 15 and that reprieve was all he needed as he scored an unbeaten 84 off just 49 balls to take India to 161/9. The target in the end proved more than enough for the defending champions to start their campaign with a win.
And it's not restricted to the associate members only as Test playing Ireland went a step ahead of the Netherlands and USA dropping as many as 10 catches in their two matches. Their first match against Sri Lankan on February 8 in Colombo saw at least four official dropped catches and a few others when the fielders misjudged the chances and didn't even get their hands on them.
With co-hosts Sri Lanka managing 104/4 after 16 overs, batters Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis went on to accelerate the scoring rate. In their bid to attack Irish seam bowling all-rounder Mark Adair, they offered not one, not two but three opportunities to Irish fielders but unfortunately all of them went down.
Top-order batter Harry Tector and Ireland's spin bowling coach Chris Brown minced no words after the match by saying that wasn't like the Irish team. "I'm not sure if guys losing focus is the reason for catches being dropped. I think they're isolated incidents. Sometimes it is a bit contagious when one gets dropped and the next one gets dropped. It's certainly disappointing, and I don't think it's down to a lack of focus. It happens in cricket sometimes, but we can't really afford to do it," Tector said.
Ireland continued to be sloppy in the fielding as they again dropped quite a few chances against Australia on Wednesday with Gareth Delany putting down Marcus Stoinis in the 18th over being the prominent one.
With the tournament still in the group stage, fielding, especially catching is expected to improve. But the losses due to the missed chances could come back to haunt a few of these teams as they might not make it to the Super Eight stage due to that one loss.