MUMBAI: Chennai Super Kings' coach Stephen Fleming minced no words and came hard on the players for dropping plenty of catches in their loss against Punjab Kings a few days ago. Among the batters, who got reprieve was the young Priyansh Arya, who went on to hammer a century after being dropped twice.
"The game was really lost on the field, I thought we were sloppy in the field, and we just lacked accuracy under pressure at certain times," Fleming had said after the match. "We were put under pressure by a fine innings [from Arya] but we've got to be better than that in terms of shutting it down. So that's where the game got away from us. The catching has been poor, but it was poor from both sides tonight. Whether it was something in the light I'm not sure, but certainly for us that was an area of concern," he added.
However, dropping catches is not confined to CSK alone. Other teams too have been found guilty of sloppy fielding. Gujarat Titans' batting coach Parthiv Patel admitted to this unusual situation that led to their loss against Lucknow Super Giants at Ekana Stadium the other day.
"What we need to improve upon is fielding, which can probably change the result of the game. We have seen that so far in this tournament. Fielding is something definitely we need to try and improve," was his response when asked in which department the team needs to improve.
In fact, every game there have been instances when more than two catches are dropped. Sometimes it's unimaginable to see star players dropping sitters. Take for instance, the drop by none other than otherwise a very good fielder Virat Kohli. It happened during Royal Challengers match against Rajasthan Royals when ever-reliable Kohli dropped a sitter at long off depriving bowler Suyash Sharma of a wicket.
The script remained the same during the Mumbai Indians clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Mumbai on Thursday. The match began with MI's Will Jacks dropping a chance offered by Abhishek Sharma at the first slip. Three balls later Karn Sharma dropped a catch of Travis Head at midwicket. SRH, meanwhile, returned the favour as Head dropped Jacks, who eventually went on to score 36 off 26 balls after claiming 2/14 from his three overs to claim the Player of the Match Award for his all-round show.
Till their match against PBKS, CSK have dropped 12 catches including the five in that match in Mullanpur. Their opponents were no different as they had dropped four catches in that contest. The total nine catches dropped in the match were the most in an IPL match according to ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball logs, surpassing the eight dropped catches by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and SRH at Eden Gardens in 2023. During the same period, LSG and PBKS have dropped six catches each.
Former India fielding coach and co-founder of Coaching Beyond said there is no specific reason behind it. "Teams are not paying enough attention to fielding as a unit. They are relying on a few individuals to do the job on the field. It's costing them dearly," Sridhar told this daily when enquired about the sloppy fielding in the ongoing IPL so far.
The ever increasing number of dropped catches meant the catch efficiency of teams has gone down considerably with every poor outing on the field. The catch efficiency is calculated by the number of successful catches divided by the total number of catch opportunities during the match. The result is then expressed in percentage. Understandably, CSK, PBKS and RR have the worst catch efficiency in the tournament so far. Credit goes to those who dropped sitters.