The Bangladesh wicketkeeper took a stunning diving catch to dismiss Ikram Alikhil off an Ebadot Hossain bouncer that brushed the batter’s glove. The dismissal, taken towards his right, was Litton’s ninth in the match, setting a new world record.
Late in the morning session on the fifth day, Litton became the first wicketkeeper in Test history to score fifty-plus runs in both innings and register nine dismissals in the same match.
Litton scored 53 in Bangladesh’s first innings and followed it up with a superb 102 in the second. He has taken eight catches and completed one stumping in the Abu Dhabi Test.
The previous record for a wicketkeeper scoring fifty-plus in both innings while recording eight dismissals belonged to South Africa’s Dennis Lindsay.
Against Australia in Johannesburg in 1966, Lindsay scored 69 and 182 in the two innings and took six catches in Australia’s first innings before adding two more in the second.
Litton is also closing in on the record for the most dismissals by a wicketkeeper in a single Test. England’s Jack Russell, South Africa’s AB de Villiers and India’s Rishabh Pant jointly hold the record with 11 dismissals each.
Russell achieved the feat against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1995. Eighteen years later, de Villiers equalled the mark against Pakistan at the same venue, while Pant matched it against Australia in Adelaide in 2018.
Litton needs two more dismissals to equal the record and three to break it.
Nine dismissals by a wicketkeeper in a Test match have now been recorded 31 times, while the 10-dismissal mark has been achieved on five occasions.
Litton had already set a Bangladesh record for the most dismissals by a wicketkeeper in a Test before the fifth day, with eight. He surpassed the previous national record of seven, set by Khaled Mashud against Zimbabwe in 2004.
