20 out of every 100 catches dropped in 19th season:DC dropped 30% catches, 5 batters slam centuries after getting lifelines

There’s an old proverb in cricket – ‘Catches wins matches’. But in IPL 2026, a new trend of ‘Drop catches, lose matches’ has taken over. Teams’ dropped catches are pushing them straight towards defeat because, after a lifeline, batters are thoroughly punishing the opposition. Out of the 9 centuries scored in the season so far, 5 centuries have been scored by batsmen who were given a ‘lifeline’ by the fielding team after dropping at least one catch. Till the initial 41 matches, the catching efficiency of teams in the season is 80.25 percent. This means fielders have missed approximately 20 out of every 100 catching opportunities. This is the fifth worst fielding performance in an IPL season since 2018. The last season tops this list, where the teams’ catching efficiency was only 75.89% till the 41-match phase. After getting a lifeline, batters score 40+ runs; teams lose 78% of matches Teams are paying the price of dropped catches in the form of defeats. In the current season, there have been 18 innings where batsmen who got a lifeline scored 40+ runs. Out of these, in 14 matches (approximately 78%), the fielding team had to face defeat. This statistic is the worst in the last nine IPL seasons. After dropped catches, batters are adding an average of 17 runs, which is the best performance since 2018. Delhi suffered 3 defeats out of 5 when they dropped someone’s catch and that player delivered a match-winning performance. This includes centuries by Samson (115*) and Abhishek (135*). On these 3 occasions, dropping catches proved costly for teams 1) Washington Sundar gave Virat Kohli a lifeline on a score of zero in the match against Gujarat Titans. He played an innings of 81 runs off 44 balls, leading RCB to a one-sided victory and also became Player of the Match. 2) Punjab Kings’ Shashank Singh dropped KL Rahul’s catch when he was on just 12 runs. Rahul went on to play the biggest innings by an Indian, scoring 152* off 67 balls. His team lost, yet he received the Player of the Match award. 3) Delhi missed the opportunity to dismiss Prabhsimran Singh (76) at 6 runs and Iyer (71*) at 28 runs. Both played match-winning innings. Punjab successfully chased 265 runs, the biggest run chase in IPL history. Record 16 catches dropped in a single day, resulting in a record 986 runs On April 25, a record 16 catches were dropped in two matches of the season’s seventh double header. The situation was such that a total of 986 runs were scored across both matches, which is the highest in a single day in IPL history. During this, Punjab chased 265 runs against Delhi, the highest in league history, and Hyderabad chased 229 runs against Rajasthan, the highest at the Jaipur venue.