It’s widely accepted that first shorter format of Cricket developed fielding skills and general athleticism of the cricketers. Its effects felt across Test Cricket as well.
Entertainment focused format provided many memorable games around the world. And, it created some iconic fielding efforts such as Jonty Rhodes running out Inzamam-Ul-Haq in 1992 World Cup.
In addition to Jonty there have been many fielders and of course wicket keepers left their mark in the game.
Note: Only the players with more than 100 dismissals are considered in this analysis.
500 Dismissals
In this view, we consider both regular fielders and wicket keepers together.
Kumar Sangakkara from Sri Lanka is the first ODI player to cross 500 dismissals barrier.
While making the most dismissals Sangakkara played 404 ODIs which is the highest among the top-10 fielders too.
The Top-10 most dismissals list, clearly occupied by the wicket keepers. A few of them including Sangakkara and Brendan McCullum occasionally played as regular fielders. But, high majority of their dismissals were wicket keeper dismissals.
Dismissal Efficiency
We refer to “Dismissals per Match” as “Dismissal Efficiency” in this analysis.
Even though Sangakkara has the most dismissals, he does not have the best efficiency. In fact, Sangakkara did not find a place in the Top-10 most efficient fielders.
Adam Gilchrist has 29 less dismissals than Sangakkara while playing in 100 plus matches less than Sangakkara.
Most Efficient Wicket Keepers
To make the comparison fairer, we are taking the the wicket keepers separately.
Adam Gilchrist who has the second most dismissals, has the best efficiency of 1.65 catches per match among wicket keepers. And, Mark Boucher, Brad Haddin and Quinton De Kock with efficiency of 1.44 are in the second place.
Top-10 Fielders
Mahela Jayawardene leads the fielding catches. He was Sri Lanka’s go to slip fielder for a long time, both on pacers and spinners. Jayawardene has taken 218 catches in 448 ODIs.
Kohli in the 2nd place has 167 catches in 311 matches. If Kohli continues to play ODIs, he might overtake Jayawardene in 95 more ODIs.
Ross Taylor from New Zealand tops the catching efficiency on the field catches with 0.6 catches per match. Ross Taylor might had provided a lot of confidence to the bowlers in swinging and seaming conditions of New Zealand grounds.
Sachin Tendulkar has a very low efficiency; 0.3. This is a little surprising since Tendulkar was very safe fielder and he usually fielded in the slips/ gully regions.
Muthiah Muralidaran is the only specialist bowler in top-10 list. Even though Murali was brilliant fielder he wasn’t usually assigned to main catching regions on the field. But, Murali’s 35 “caught and bowled” wickets definitely might have helped.
Stumpings
7 of the wicket keepers in the top-10 most stumpings list are from the Indian subcontinent. This is quite understandable given the spin friendly pitches in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Even the spinners from outside, got more stumpings while playing in the subcontinent.
79% percent of the stumpings from the top-10 stumpings list have been recorded in the subcontinent.
MS Dhoni has the highest number of stumpings; 125. But, Romesh Kaluwitharana from Sri Lanka has the highest percentage of stumpings; 36%.
During Kaluwitharana’s career Sri Lanka had very spin heavy bowling attacks. And, during this time Sri Lankan spinners enjoyed a lot of success too. 4 out 5 highest wicket takers for Sri Lanka during the time were spinners.
- Muralitharan – 237 wickets
- Sanath Jayasuriya -162 wickets
- Kumar Dharmasena – 93 wickets
- Upul Chandana – 68 wickets
Most Dismissals in a Match
The most number of dismissals made by a wicket keeper in match is 6. This has been recorder 18 times. And, 6 of them were from Adam Gilchrist!
Among the regular fielders, the highest number of catches taken in a match is 5. Jonty Rhodes took 5 catches in 1993 and Harry Brook in 2025, both against West Indies.
Leading From the Front
Even though Sangakkara was not in the overall top-10 efficiency list, he tops the efficiency as captains list by a fair margin.
MS Dhoni who is one of the best captains in the history of the game, follows next. MSD’s achievement is quite significant given that he led India in 200 ODIs.
Well known skippers such as Ponting, Viv Richards and Fleming who were brilliant fielders as well have very close levels of efficiency.
2 Decades of Wicket Keepers
All top-10 wicket keepers but Ian Healy had played in the first 2 decades from the year 2000. At times, up to 6 of them had played at same times. No other era of the game has not seen so much concentration of skills.
Even though we can argue that the popularity of the game created this pattern, each of these players individually are rated quite high.
Sources
Match and player statistics sourced from ESPNcricinfo.
Charts, calculations, visualizations, and analysis independently created by Green Lake Posts.