VIDEO | Tim Paine does a Kamran Akmal as he lets go straightforward catch to give Joe Root a reprieve

09/06/2019

Ever since making his comeback to the Test team in 2017, Tim Paine has been extremely solid behind the stumps, often grabbing everything that comes his way. But today, the Aussie keeper had a moment to forget, as he misjudged and let go an easy catch off Pat Cummins to give Joe Root a reprieve.

If one were to make a list of modern-day wicketkeepers who could be blindly trusted behind the stumps, Aussie skipper Tim Paine would arguably be right up there, as his exploits behind the wickets in Test cricket over the course of the last 18 months have been appreciable. And as a testament to his work done in the past year and a half, the Aussie skipper caught almost everything that came his way in the first three matches of the series, ensuring that the bowlers reaped rewards for their efforts.

On a relatively flat deck at Old Trafford, opportunities to take wickets seemed few and far between, and the fielders needed to ensure that they took every chance that came their way. Despite the track offering nothing, Pat Cummins was troubling the batters in the middle with his probing lines and lengths and a wicket did not seem far away.

On the fifth ball of the 52nd over, the Aussie pacer squared up English skipper Joe Root with an absolute peach which tailed away late after drifting into the batsmen. The ball caught the outside edge of Root's bat as he tried to flick it towards the on-side and it flew towards the keeper. However, in a moment of indecision or rather a "brainfade", skipper and wicket-keeper Paine just watched as the ball go, assuming the catch was going to be taken by David Warner at first-slip.

However, to the Australians' dismay, the ball instead flew right into the gap between the keeper and first slip and raced off to a boundary. On the second look, it was clear that the edge was actually the keeper's catch, as it was a good few inches away from Warner at slip. The misjudgement, however, didn't cost the Aussies much, as Root only added 23 more runs to his tally.

Perhaps, you can say that Paine had his own "Kamran Akmal moment", but let's hope that this is a one-off and not a common recurrence in the future.