'It gave me nightmares for a couple of nights' - Hasan Ali opens up about his dropped catch against Australia during 2021 T20 WC

Pakistan pacer Hasan Ali has spoken his mind about the infamous catch he dropped during the semi-final of the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup against Australia. It was the pacer who came under huge scrutiny after dropping a regulation catch in Shaheen Afridi’s over. The pacer also felt that he is ‘incapable’ of playing for his country.

Wicketkeeper-batter Matthew Wade (41 off 17 balls) and Marcus Stoinis (40 off 31) played some excellent cricket in that all-important match to take Australia over the line while chasing 175 runs. However, the left-handed batter could have been dismissed in the 19th over had it not been for Ali’s dropped catch. After the reprieve, Wade became more dangerous and thrashed Afridi for 22 runs to seal the deal.

During practice, I caught close to 500 catches: Hasan Ali

In a conversation with PakPassion, Ali was asked about the dropped catch and if he is still hurt or has gotten over it. The pacer replied that he was in deep shock and started feeling that his countrymen have started hating him. To note, Ali also proved to be costly in that match as he gave away 44 runs in his four-over quota.

“That dropped catch in the semi-final against Australia did give me nightmares for a couple of nights. I was in deep shock and felt very low for letting the side down at that point and couldn’t figure out how and why I dropped that catch. Especially given that as an individual and a team we trained very hard on our fielding-so it was a tough pill to swallow for me,” he said.

Hasan Ali also told that during the practice sessions, he used to take more than 500 catches without dropping any of them. “Of course, for me, it’s more painful because I feel that people have started to hate me and started believing that I am incapable of playing for Pakistan. But then this is the strange thing about cricket because in our practice sessions during that tournament, I caught close to 500 catches without dropping any!” the pacer added.

Talking about Hasan Ali’s T20I numbers, the right-arm pacer has played 49 matches for his country and has scalped a total of 60 wickets at a strike rate of 16.6. He has played bagged 89 wickets in 58 ODIs and has a total of ten five-wicket hauls in limited-overs cricket.