Watch: Ben Foakes takes excellent low catch standing up to spinner despite significant downward deviation
Watch: Ben Foakes claimed a top-class catch standing up to the stumps, staying low to hold onto an under-edge from Shreyas Iyer.
Wickets were at a premium on the first day of the second India-England Test at Visakhapatnam, with the hosts choosing to bat first in prime batting conditions. They had made their way to 179-2, with Yashasvi Jaiswal’s century supported by starts from the rest of the top four.
Iyer had faced 58 balls for 27 when he tried to cut a ball from Tom Hartley. The delivery bounced too low for Iyer to make good contact, and he could only nick the ball downwards. The ball had already kept low, but Foakes had stayed low with it, and managed to cling on despite a significant deviation off the bat.
“The first thing that we’re seeing is how good his head position is,” Dinesh Karthik said on commentary when praising the catch. “As a keeper, we speak a lot about footwork and glovework and that’s a major part of it. When the ball is about to bounce, his gloves are still on the ground and that’s exactly where you want to be. Stay low until the ball bounces, and then he gets up, thinking the ball is going to come at a certain height, but it keeps low and then he goes down with his gloves. There is a deflection. The give that you see from the side angle, his hands will go back, rather than grabbing at it. Beautiful.”
Foakes, recalled for India following the Ashes because of his superior wicketkeeping skills, had a quiet first Test. He put on an important partnership with Ollie Pope to start England’s comeback in the second innings, but it wasn’t until the closing stages that he effected his first dismissal, with India’s last two wickets of the game falling stumped.
He has already matched that tally this time, taking a diving catch to dismiss Shubman Gill off James Anderson before his Iyer grab.
