India and fielding — from flashes of brilliance to a consistent sparkle

“No great thing is created suddenly.” So said Epictetus, the Greek philosopher born into slavery and who was influenced, among others, by Socrates and Hippocrates.

Epictetus was certainly not referring to fielding and/or catching when he made that remark. He was a stoic philosopher who taught that it was ‘most important to know oneself and have internal control over thoughts and emotions’. These tenets are keys to success in any walk of life, so why not transpose them to cricket too, in general, and to fielding, more specifically?

The era of picking extraordinary batters alone or exceptional bowlers alone, even if they were downright poor fielders, is long past. Even before the 20-over bug bit the sport in the first half of the 2000s, fielding had come to be accepted as a third crucial discipline, not just an addendum to batting or bowling. Some of the great teams of the past had either electric fielders or assured catchers or both. Indeed, according to Sunil Gavaskar, the greatest Indian fielding team of all time was the one that clinched the World Championship of Cricket crown in Melbourne in 1985, a side that was replete with all-rounders in every sense of the term.

The profusion of T20 cricket has triggered new approaches and elevated fielding to a glorious spectacle. Boundary-line catches where the fielder somehow manages to latch on to the ball, toss it up in the air when they are about to cross the rope, and then comes back into nonchalantly pouching it, are no longer the exception. They also don’t come about by accident. One only needs to watch a fielding session of an age-group state side, let alone a franchise or a senior international outfit, to see how meticulously and uncompromisingly the players attempt and complete what once were considered outrageous snaffles.

There is no denying the fact that the T20 format has compelled fielders to become better and better. Tales of Colin Bland hitting one stump time after time are legendary and have attained a mythical status because there isn’t ready or extensive television footage, but when Jonty Rhodes, all bustle and energy and athleticism and low centre of gravity, showcased his brilliance upon South Africa’s return from isolation in 1991, the cricket world was truly captivated. Thousands flocked the ground to merely watch the Rhodes show, though it must not be forgotten that possibly the first cricketer to win a Player of the Series award primarily for his catching was Gavaskar himself.

At the four-nation Rothmans Cup in Sharjah in 1985, almost immediately after their unbeaten run to the WCC crown, India expertly defended 125 against Pakistan – Gavaskar made only two but held four catches – in the semifinal and then edged out Australia by three wickets in a low-scoring final. The Aussies were bowled out for 139 with Gavaskar taking the catch that got rid of their highest scorer, Kepler Wessels (30). Gavaskar, who had ceded the captaincy to Kapil Dev after leading the side to the Melbourne high, was run out for 20 during India’s stuttering chase. His net returns for the tournament were 22 runs and five catches.

Until three and a half months back, the most talked-about catch in Indian cricket was the one Kapil took at Lord’s on 25 June 1983, in the final of the last 60-over World Cup. With Viv Richards threatening to make India’s 183 appear remarkably miniscule and Madan Lal imploring his captain to give him one more over so that he could have another crack at the great Antiguan, Kapil obliged, then ran a million miles back from mid-wicket to grab the pull that seemed destined to send the ball towards the ropes. Kapil’s loping strides and fierce focus as he kept his eyes on the ball over his left shoulder left no room for doubt long before he had completed the formalities. One just knew that there was no way he was not going to hold on to the catch; such is the lot of geniuses that we take even amazing slices of brilliance for granted.

That Kapil catch energised India as they defended their small total with tigerish zeal, eventually turning the world order upside down with one of the upsets of the cricket world. The bookmakers had given India odds of 66 to 1 to go all the way. All the way they did go, triggering a revolution that has catapulted Indian cricket to the dizzying perch it occupies today.

The 1983 World Cup was the last time India went into a global cricketing event as rank outsiders. Apart from perhaps the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007 – India had played just one international in that format, the ‘big boys’ were all missing and Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s band wasn’t really expected to pose a major threat – the Indians have entered all subsequent World Cups as among the strong favourites. Commensurate success hasn’t followed, and the clamour for a World Cup trophy kept growing with each successive barren run after the ultimate success at the 2011 50-over World Cup at home.

It took a screamer from Suryakumar Yadav off the first ball of the final over of the T20 World Cup final against South Africa on June 29 for India to end their long drought. There’s no gainsaying what might have transpired had David Miller’s strike off a Hardik Pandya full toss cleared the long-off fence; SKY ensured there was no necessity for speculation, no needless panic, no fraying of nerves, no furious attacks on fingernails, with the most ridiculous show of composure under extreme pressure, pulling off the catch-the-ball-toss-it-up-in-the-air- exit-playing-arena-and- return-to-complete-the-catch routine with consummate ease, as good as assuring that Rohit Sharma would wrap his hands around the elusive piece of silverware.

Just a week back, Rohit himself was in the limelight for a stunning overhead catch at mid-off to evict Litton Das on day four of the Kanpur Test against Bangladesh. The loss of 235 overs over the first three days threatened to scupper India’s hunt for World Test Championship points, but the captain’s sensational grab when the Bangladesh stumper charged needlessly Mohammed Siraj roused his colleagues. Siraj, not necessarily one of the more athletic or assured fielders, himself reprised his skipper’s magic with a fabulous one-handed catch running back from mid-off to pack off Shakib Al Hasan. The twin blows, not long separated, provided the impetus on which India rode to a scarcely believable seven-wicket victory. The batters have been eulogised for maintaining a run-rate of 8.22 per over across 34.4 overs, the bowlers have been celebrated for picking up 20 wickets in a mere 119.2 overs on a reasonably unresponsive deck. As they should be. But less extolled has been the catching, not just of Rohit and Siraj but also at gully to the pacers of Yashasvi Jaiswal, who is showing himself as an excellent replacement at that position for his Mumbai colleague, Ajinkya Rahane.

While the outside world might be taken in by the magnificence of strokeplay or the luminescence of a Jasprit Bumrah spell, within the contours of the team, the focus on work in the field is massive. “I was just informed that out of the 24 catches that came our way, we took 23 of them, which is a great result,” Rohit remarked in the immediacy of the 2-0 lead that consolidated India’s position at the helm of the WTC points table. “It may look easy on television, but it isn’t.”

India have had a series of wonderful fielding coaches over the last decade and a half. R. Sridhar, who was with the side for seven years between 2014 and 2021, has been widely credited with changing attitudes, mindsets and approaches to fielding and catching, while his successor T. Dilip, a fellow Hyderabadi, has won the trust and the admiration of the playing group for his innovative methodology. Dilip is principally responsible for the introduction of the ‘fielding medal’; the pomp and ceremony surrounding the award of that medal has taken social media by storm and the players might not entirely be truthful if they say that there isn’t a healthy competition amongst them to be the recipient of that coveted medal. The fielding medal isn’t just an acknowledgement of how crucial the discipline, once a poor cousin to batting and bowling, has become but also a recognition of the not-so-glamorous performances that can easily slide by unnoticed but which play substantial roles in altering the balance of a game at a critical juncture.

India will need to be on top of their fielding game in Australia during the five-Test series starting in November. They will need to grab everything that comes their way when the pacers create chances, which they invariably will. The emergence of Shubman Gill as an excellent poucher at slip to complement Jaiswal’s great hands, and the increasing assurance with which the once-jumpy Virat Kohli and KL Rahul man the slip cordon are reassuring developments. But as much as the catching, India’s ground fielding too must step up. The bigger grounds Down Under and the propensity of the Australian batters to look for two and a half when only one might appear par for the course will test their fitness, agility, throwing arms and staying power. It might be a slight exaggeration to state that fielding will prove the difference, but only a slight one, mind.