10 April 2023 - Charles Davis
Dropped Catches in Tests: 2023Compiling of dropped catch reports has continued into 2023. This dataset stretches back to 2001 for all Tests, and much further back for some selected Tests, particularly in England. The percentage of chances missed has been decreasing – i.e., catching is improving – gradually but slowly in this century. Does the 2023 data add anything new?
Overall, 22.3 per cent of chances (catches and stumpings) were missed in 2023, down from 24.4 per cent in 2022. This is the lowest annual miss rate recorded so far, the previous low being 22.8 per cent in 2018.
The most surprising thing to me is seeing Australia with the worst drop rate of any country. It’s the first year that this has happened. It seems strange, yet the impression during the 2023 Ashes was that Australia was dropping a lot of catches and England doing not much better.
Among individuals, Alastair Cook retains his position as both the leading beneficiary of dropped catches (78) in the 21st Century and, as a fielder, the leading perpetrator (81). It must be noted that Cook spent a lot of time in his early career fielding at short leg, the position with the highest general drop rate.
There has been some movement in the stats of bowlers. Stuart Broad finished his career with more dropped catches than anyone else (144). He moved ahead of Jimmy Anderson, who had 135 at the cutoff date, and has probably registered a few more so far in 2024. Also still in full stride is Nathan Lyon, also on 135, and likely to pass Broad at some point.
Lyon has seen 28 per cent of chances missed off his bowling, as against 26 per cent for Broad and 23 per cent for Anderson. For other countries, Ravi Ashwin on 102 (27%) is the only bowler with more than 100 chances missed.
Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins had the most chances dropped off their bowling in 2023, with ten each. Steve Smith was the most sinful fielder, with eleven misses (Bairstow and Root next, with nine and seven respectively), although Smith also took the most (non-keeper) catches with 22. The luckiest batsman was Ben Stokes with nine misses, followed by Usman Khawaja on eight. Rohit Sharma took five catches in 2023 without registering a miss.