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India’s awe inspiring win over Australia last week is one of the greatest fairytale endings in all of cricket history. Obviously, the headlines is about how a highly depleted Indian-team without its captain and best batsman, all its first choice and some second choice bowlers were able to summon all its strength to prevail over a full strength Australian team with one of the best bowling attacks in recent times. Pant’s brilliant counter attacks, Pujara’s grit and determination, Rahane’s brainy captaincy and a new wave of Indian bowlers blossoming stood out as the top reasons for the much cherished Indian win. Beyond these, lurking in the back is one of the critical reasons for India’s win - Dropped catches & stumpings by Australia. Lets peel the onion and look inside.
Whether it was the fact that they were in COVID lockdowns for most of the year and not training well or it was the fact that concentration levels have dropped off due to T20’s and ODI’s, it is clear that both teams dropped a lot of catches.
India dropped a bunch of catches in Adelaide and Australia reciprocated by dropping 7 in Melbourne. Come Sydney, both teams dropped almost similar amounts. However in Brisbane, India dropped more catches and Australia just the 1 stumping. So, overall you might come to the conclusion that it all evens out and the difference is not too obvious. Let us go further deep. Let us look at the cost of these catch drops or missed stumpings, which is very critical to understand and that's where the story really comes alive.
For all the catches that Australia dropped, the cost was 314 runs. This is the total number of runs scored by the Indian batsmen after their catch was dropped. The corresponding cost of India’s catch drops is 325 runs. So 314 vs 325, again not much to choose.
Let us look at the indirect cost. What is indirect cost - If a catch is dropped, the partnership is not broken as well. So the indirect cost takes into account the entire team score from the time the catch was dropped to the time when that batsman actually gets out. For example, if Kohli were to be dropped at 5 and the score was 50/2 and then he goes on to make 40 and gets out at 120/3 then the direct cost is 35 and indirect cost is 70. In this metric, India’s cost is higher than Australia’s - 610 vs 500 which again doesn’t explain why India won because of dropped catches.
However the story climaxes when you look at the context of whose catches were dropped and when. In the first test even though India took a lead of 53 runs in the first innings, they dropped a bunch of catches especially off the 2 top scorers, Paine and Labuschagne costing them 85 runs. If they had held on to those catches, India could have actually bowled Australia out for much cheaper, taken a bigger lead and gone into bat at the end of Day 2 instead of the deadly morning of Day 3 where they eventually were bowled out for 36.
Moving on to the second test match, India were flawless in this match. Australia were shoddy. They dropped Shubman Gill twice and Rahane the centurion twice too. Failing to take early wickets and stopping the centurion were huge mistakes.
In Sydney, both the teams dropped an equal amount. However, India’s drops were not that costly. They gave some extra runs to Labuschagne but in the larger scheme of things that did not hurt them much as they were trying to draw. But Australia really screwed up. They dropped Pant in the 4th inninngs when he was on 3 and then again at 56. They also dropped Ashwin when there were 31 overs still to go. If they had caught that catch, they had enough time to bowl India out and the whole series would have taken a different tone.
The Brisbane test match was certainly the most evenly matched one in the series. India made a huge mistake by dropping Labuschange when he was on 37 and he went on to score 71 more runs. That was very costly. But luckily for India it happened in the first innings and they were able to make up lost ground and catch up. However, Australia (Tim Paine here) again missed a stumping to get Pant out when he was on 16. It was not an easy chance but definitely a chance. Pant, of course, went on to score 89* and clinch the series for India.
So when it came to the critical direct cost of dropped catches/stumpings, Indian fielders gave away 184 runs whereas Australia gave away 292. That 108 run difference was enough to tilt the scales towards India.
Even though this is not the primary reason for India’s win, it clearly was a huge factor. Tim Paine himself dropped 5 catches and the stumping of Rishabh Pant.
Dropped catches also win matches !
Canada: Tarot expectations show that there is acceptable opportunity to accomplish enthusiastic bliss which is expected.
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