5 Top cricketers who were dropped for poor fielding

2. Kamran Akmal

Pakistani ‘keeper-bat Kamran Akmal used to be a vital cog in the men-in-green’s batting lineup of the past decade. Kamran’s USP was that he could reliably bat at just about any position in the order, which made him a handy all-position batsman.

Additionally, he also served as a handy wicket-keeping option. His keeping stats in Tests read 184 catches and 22 stumpings from 53 matches. That being said, Kamran’s work behind the stumps, while serviceable, proved to be disappointingly mediocre at times. The eldest Akmal sibling has been culpable of making some notoriously infamous errors in important matches for Pakistan.

Kamran’s twin-drops off Ross Taylor in a 2011 World Cup match nearly cost Pakistan a qualification spot; while his shoddy glovework in the 2010 Sydney Test match elicited a whole bunch of memes and jokes in the cricket fraternity. In fact, the ICC even officially charged him on match-fixing allegations after that abysmal display!

Jokes and humor aside, Kamran’s poor glovesmanship have often cost him a place in the Pakistani playing XI. He was excluded from the 2008 Asia Cup and post 2011 World Cup teams purely on account of his disappointing work behind the stumps. And ironically, on both occasions, his younger brother, Umar, replaced him in the team.