I have a blind spot when it comes to cricket.
So today, when I was commentating for talkSPORT, a ball was hooked out to a fielder, and I saw the ball going and I saw the fielder come around, and I could see the angle. In my mind, I instantly think, “Oh, that is going to be fielded. There is no doubt that the player is going to stop that.”
I start to move my gaze away. And as I do, something goes wrong. Suddenly, the crowd is all cheering. I look back and Rachin Ravindra has missed the ball and it has gone for four. This actually happens a lot with me. I automatically assume that people are going to field balls that apparently they are not going to.
And for Rachin Ravindra, it has just been that kind of series. A bunch of punchlines with fleeting moments of success. And today, again, New Zealand needed him. People have expected him to do better, and he just hasn’t.
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Rachin Ravindra lasted one ball in his first innings at Lord’s. I think what we know of that pitch now, no one’s going to hold that one completely against him. It was a very tough pitch. But in the second innings, he also never looked like it. Eventually, a ball kept low, and he was bowled for eight.
And for most international batters, especially those trying to make a big impact on England and Test cricket as a whole, that’s a pretty bad thing to have happened in a match. But it was not the worst thing that happened to him. Because twice in the Test, Rachin Ravindra dropped a very simple catch.
One was from Harry Brook, where it was hit out to him in the deep. It couldn’t have been hit any softer or easier or straight at him. And for some reason, he just kind of jumped at the ball chest first and dropped it. And I was arguing with a lot of people that was the worst one he missed in that Test, but the other one was also incredibly simple.
It was a flick to short midwicket that he just should’ve taken, and he didn’t. So he failed to make runs or to take catches. New Zealand were one-nil down, and their brightest prospect was turned off.
At the Oval, he got himself set, middled the ball, and took New Zealand away from danger. It looked like this was going to be his time. Then he hung his bat out to a fairly standard back of the length ball from Sonny Baker and gave the young man his first wicket in Test cricket.
And this was really the first time in the summer he looked in any kind of form. At Lord’s, it was tough for everyone. But now he had to go out in the field. New Zealand were on top, but it was still a position where it could have gone either way. And of course, at that point, James Rew hit one straight up in the air, and Rachin Ravindra just got a little bit lost.
This is when the series was at halfway. Three failures and three drops from Rachin Ravindra was all we had seen. There was a huge possibility of this series slipping out of his and New Zealand’s collective fingers.
When he came out to bat in the second innings, they were 28 for two.