NEW DELHI: Catches win matches is as old an adage one can get. Catches do change course of the match and sometimes in the end are the difference between victory and defeat.
An excellent catch always charges up the players and that’s was exactly happened on the first day of the 5th Test between India and England in Dharamshala.
England had got off to a fine start after opting to bat first and were 64/0 when Kuldeep Yadav struck for the first wicket in his first over.
Frustrated after playing far too many dot balls by his standards, Duckett (27) went for a massive whack on the leg-side, but the googly went low and skewed a thick top-edge into the air on the off-side where Gill, ran sideways to his right from cover and put in a splendid well-timed dive to grab the catch.
The Indian cricket board (BCCI) shared a video of the catch on X:

The best part about that Gill catch was he never took his eyes of the ball and covered 16 metres backwards before taking it over his right shoulder.
Gill had to run back and keep his eyes on the ball at the same time, but in the end he made it look really easy.
The great Sunil Gavaskar, on air, even compared the catch to Travis Head catch off Rohit Sharma in the 2023 World Cup final.