4 great cricketers who were dropped due to their fielding

Cricket broadly consists of three disciplines, as everyone knows and among those, fielding has been regarded as the least important of the three over the years. Bowlers create the chances that lead to chances while batsmen pile up the runs. However, that being said, a team can hardly expect to compete if a particular fielder keeps letting the bowling attack down in the field.

Good players who are either excellent bowlers or excellent batsmen or superb all-rounders do have their off days in the field but over the course of cricket's history, there have been such cricketers who have been axed from the side due to their lax fielding.

Here is a look at 4 of those players who were dropped for their sub-par fielding:

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#4 Yuvraj Singh

Yuvraj Singh fell out of favour with captain Virat Kohli due to his lack of fitness towards the end of his career

For the majority of his career, former Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh was one of the world's finest limited-overs batsmen. However, following his illness in the aftermath of the 2011 World Cup, he was never the same player. He generally struggled following his return to the side. However, captain Virat Kohli brought him back into the side for his erstwhile power-hitting capabilities and his ability to roll over his arm every now and then. Yuvraj's show during that period was up and down and what probably proved to be the last nail for him was his deteriorating fitness levels.

For a player, who used to be what commentators called 'electric', he had become a slow-moving fielder and a bit of a liability. For Virat Kohli, who is trying to build a team of 11 to 15 supremely fit cricketers, Yuvraj no longer figured in his plans. He has not been back in the team since 2017.

#3 Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal has made comical errors behind the stumps over the years

Now, Kamran Akmal is neither anyone's idea of a 'great' player nor was he a fielder in the strictest application of the term. However, his goof-ups behind the stumps have gone into cricketing folklore, and in addition to that, suspicion of match-fixing also hounded him for much of his career.

As a batsman, Akmal was quite a handful and was known for giving Pakistan blistering starts in the limited-overs versions of the game. In Test matches too, he was often dependable. However, the way he dropped catches regularly or missed stumpings and run out chances, did him no favours. Eventually, he found himself out of the side, and a large part of it had to with his comically incompetent wicketkeeping.

#2 Rahul Dravid

Rahul Dravid relinquished his captaincy in 2007 and found himself out of the team soon after

The former Indian captain and legendary batsman, Rahul Dravid had been one of the true greats for India in both Test and ODIs for his country. After India's superb show in the limited-overs format for around two years, the team faltered severely in the 2007 World Cup and the same year, Dravid relinquished the captaincy.

The new captain, MS Dhoni, was, however, not in favour of keeping him in the side and according to reports from the time, one of the reasons cited for Dravid not being in his plans was that he wasn't the sort of fielder that he was looking for in the team. Now, Dravid wasn't a disastrous fielder, but he was 34 years old at the time, and he was not going to be the sort of 'modern' fielder that Dhoni wanted. 'The Wall' was dropped from the side without much fanfare.

#1 Sourav Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly found himself out of favour when Dhoni took over as captain.

Sourav Ganguly is regarded as one of India's greatest limited-overs opening batsmen, and for most of his career, the legendary captain remained one of the team's foremost performers. More than 11,000 runs and 22 centuries are a testament to that. However, he was never the swiftest movers in the field, and although he was a relatively safe catcher, he was not someone who could cover lots of ground, dive around or run hard to stop hard-hit strokes from going to the boundary.

Hence, when MS Dhoni became the captain of the side in 2007, Ganguly was also dropped from the team despite being in relatively decent form in the ODIs leading up to that series in Australia. Like Dravid, his lack of prowess as a fielder worked against him and he never played for India in limited-overs cricket again.