When hands fail and history alters: cricket’s notorious dropped catches

England’s most renowned butterfingered culprits share the lingering regret that came from a single moment

We all know what it is like to drop a catch. Remember when your colleague tossed you that Pink Lady over your desk, about eight years ago now. To the day. It was such a dolly! You malfunctioned didn’t you? Let yourself down, the apple fell on to your keyboard with an embarrassing clatter. Qwerty? Droppy more like. What about that time you fumbled the car keys off that simple over-bonnet-toss and there was a small but quite significant part of you inside that died for ever as you scrambled among the filth on the pavement. That is where you belong now, Droppy, among the dirt and grime, on the floor alongside your spilt opportunity.

The cricket writer and author Jon Hotten has come up with best description I’ve found for that truly awful feeling of dropping a catch in cricket (or indeed otherwise): “A hollowing out of the spirit.” “It’s not like failure with the bat or the ball, which is more personal,” Hotten writes, “It’s a failure that directly and immediately affects the bowler and the captain … It weakens you psychically, sometimes physically.”

It is this double edged grief that makes dropping a catch in cricket so grim. You have let yourself and your teammates down, as a professional – your fans and followers too. The feeling is exacerbated exponentially the easier the catch. So, what is it like to be known for dropping one of the game’s biggest goobers? The Spin got in touch with some of England’s most renowned and butterfingered culprits in recent memory to find out.

Mike Gatting answers the phone and I can him hear him audibly blow his cheeks out when I explain the reason I’ve called. It is quite a tough sell. “Hello, would you mind reliving one of the most painful and embarrassing moments of your life …”

“I’ll never to this day understand how you drop something like that,” Gatting recalls of his infamously simple spillage of Kiran More at silly mid-off during a 1993 Test against India in Chennai. With the ball looping gently to Gatting off the glove, the bowler Ian Salisbury is already celebrating and the umpire RS Rathore has his finger raised, so inevitable is the catch. “I didn’t even get the hands clutched enough to get to it,” he sighs.

The ball somehow ricochets of Gatting’s fingers and plops on to the floor. His face during and after is a portrait of pain and confusion. A Raymond Briggs character given the Hieronymus Bosch treatment. At the time he suggested that he might have lost the flight of the ball in the sun but 32 years later he puts it down to a glitch in the universe. “It’s unfathomable.”

“I don’t take myself back there too often,” chuckles Joe Denly as he trains in his local gym for the upcoming season, his 21st with Kent. “There” is Hamilton and the second Test of England’s two-match series against New Zealand in 2019. Denly was in his 10th Test match and daydreaming at short mid-wicket. “I was certainly cloud watching,” he says. “I wish there was an excuse but there really isn’t, it was an absolute shocker!”

Kane Williamson, on 62 and battling to draw the game and thus win the series for his team on the final afternoon, is foxed by a Jofra Archer slower ball, he plinks in the air to Denly at mid-wicket (“If I ever find myself fielding there for Kent now I get out of there sharpish before the PTSD sets in”). Denly shells the easiest of chances. Williamson went on to make an unbeaten century and New Zealand won the series. “Everyone was in disbelief, I really wanted the ground to swallow me up.”

Does a drop like that still linger? “I’ve made my peace with it, I think, the only thing that is annoying is when you Google me there used to be clips of my batting, now the first thing that comes up is that drop, I find myself having to explain it to my kids. I was alright you know …”

It is a feeling that Jenny Gunn is all too familiar with. “All those matches, all that batting, bowling and fielding … and I’m mainly remembered for that one bloody dropped catch!” she laments down the phone from her home in Sydney where she now coaches.

Gunn played 259 times for England across formats but in the third of those World Cup finals, in front of a full house at Lord’s, Gunn spilled an easy chance off Anya Shrubsole which would, and should, have been the winning moment – destined to be played on highlights reels for years to come. And yet she failed to grasp the dolly served up by India’s last batter, Rajeshwari Gayakwad. Her teammates, including the captain Heather Knight, thought she had just cost them the trophy. “My whole family were there that day, my grandma and my four-year-old nephew. They both would have caught that catch.”

Gunn’s blushes were spared when Shrubsole took the final wicket with the very next ball. “Not a day goes by when I’m not thankful to Anya for taking that wicket. I’m happy to have the piss taken out of me now, something which my family and mates often do, but it doesn’t matter, because we won.”

Gatting, Denly and Gunn all say they have made their peace with their butterfingered past. It might take some time but after a while the sting of a drop does seem to seep away. Remember that, the next time you fluff your big chance with the car keys.

Tale of two drops

Of course, a dropped catch stings more or less depending on its ramifications. For every Gunn – who only had to wait one delivery to be relieved of her butterfingered misery – there is a Chris Scott or Herschelle Gibbs.

Scott famously dropped Brian Lara at Durham in 1994 when the left-handed run machine was on 18. He went on to make a world record 501 runs. The costliest drop in history? Probably not. Gibbs could claim that dubious honour after he missed Steve Waugh at mid-wicket in the 1999 World Cup.

Waugh was on 56 when he clipped a simple chance to Gibbs at mid-wicket. Australia were on the brink having slipped to 48 for 3, chasing 272. Gibbs pouched the ball momentarily and went to throw it up in celebration, crucially fumbling the ball in the process. The umpire ruled that the ball was not under control and therefore the catch was in fact a drop. Waugh went on to make 120 not out and win the game.

The victory kept Australia in the tournament and also put them above South Africa in the Super Six stage, when the two sides memorably tied in the semi-final four days later. This seemingly innocuous detail saw South Africa knocked out. Now, 26 years later and South Africa’s men are still in search of their first global tournament trophy. Now, that is a drop.

What’s your most butterfingered moment? Email james.wallace.casual@theguardian.com or leave a comment to expel the demons.

Quote of the week

“We are delighted to have found partners who share our values and understand the power and mystique of Lord’s” – they also have very deep pockets. The MCC chair Mark Nicholas writes to members about the £144.55m winning bid by a Silicon Valley consortium for a 49% stake in, erm, London Spirit.

Memory lane

Earlier this week, the Australian one-day legend Michael Bevan – sunnies, at the front – who scored 6,912 runs at 53.58 from 232 ODIs, was finally inducted into Australia’s cricket Hall of Fame after new criteria put more onus on limited overs contributions. In doing so, he joined five of his teammates from the picture above, taken before the one-day squad flew out for a series against Sri Lanka and India in 1999, the late Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Steve and Mark Waugh.

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