Punjab Kings’ horrific time on the field continued as they dropped three catches during the first innings of their clash against the Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday, May 6. The likes of Shashank Singh, Lockie Ferguson and Cooper Connolly dropped easy chances to hand the PBKS batters several lifelines in the fixture at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.
The first instance took place during the eighth over of Ferguson, when Connolly dropped Ishan Kishan’s sitter at the deep backward square leg. Shashank was the next culprit as his terrible time in catching continued. Heinrich Klaasen slog swept Yuzvendra Chahal to deep backward square leg, where Shashank dropped another easy one. He had already put down three catches against the LSG and one more against the DC.
Chahal wears stoic look after more chances go down
Chahal was already in disbelief when Shashank dropped an easy one. He wore a stoic look when Lockie Ferguson put down another one at deep backward square leg as Kishan got another life. The nightmare wasn’t over yet. Four balls later, wicketkeeper Prabhsimran missed out on a stumping chance against Kishan.ย
Ricky Ponting reacts to the drops
Meanwhile, PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting spoke to the broadcasters during the first innings. On being asked about the fielding errors, Ponting tried finding humour in the disappointment. “It’s like a virus. We’ve put a lot of catches down so far this season. The boys have worked exceptionally hard and, you know, poor old Shashank there. It just looks like the ball is following him around everywhere he goes.ย
“He’s sitting under a high ball. [On Shashank] He missed a couple of games with a strained left hamstring. So it’s taken him about a week and a half to come back from that. So he’s done all his work the last week to be physically right to play the game. And we have pumped the catching into him over the last five or six days. There’s no doubt about that. But yeah, once again, one goes down tonight and hopefully it’s not too costly.ย
“He is a very, very good T20 player but he can’t afford to be dropping catches like that. So one thing I said to the boys at the time out is those chances are coming. And if we can hang on to them, we can make a bit of a dent in this batting lineup and hopefully get into the lower order sooner rather than later.ย
Ponting don’t want to find any excuses
Meanwhile, Ponting does not want to give any excuses for the fielding efforts. “[Ring of lights the reason?] I’m not going to be making excuses for anyone putting down a catch. I mean, we trained here last night. That’s the beauty of coming to these venues. You get a chance, you know, one or two sessions normally to have a bit of a train under the lights and get a bit of a feel for the venue. So we’ve had a couple this year.ย
“It was a Chahal in Mumbai that went straight into the light that he lost. But it looked like Shashank had that one covered the whole way. So I’m not going to go ahead and make excuses. You know, when a catch like that goes, you’ve got to take it,” he said.
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