“Fielding isn’t work when you’re enjoying it,” Jonty Rhodes noted it many years ago to Cricinfo.
The above-mentioned famous quote by one of the finest fielders the game has ever seen perhaps relates to the current mindset of the Indian women’s team. Although in a rather negative sense. During the ongoing World Cup, in training sessions, it doesn’t seem as if the girls and the coaching staff are not showing dedication towards fielding. Before their opening fixture versus New Zealand, the players practised for close to 90 minutes. Once again, before the India-Pakistan encounter, the fielding coach, Munish Bali conducted a training session, which lasted for about 45 minutes to one hour.
This time around, the focus was on helping Richa Ghosh improve her wicketkeeping skills. The Indian wicketkeeper dropped a rather easy chance to give Suzie Bates a reprieve in the India-New Zealand match. The ball did swirl in the air for a bit and that probably resulted in the dropped catch. From a distance, it was crystal clear that the chat between the coach and the player was about how to pouch a catch when it is whirling in the air.
Richa did grab a few catches, where she had to run around a bit, with the ball dropping on her. She was trying to get her hands to the “line of the ball”. She was also allowing the ball to come to her and seemed relaxed. Maybe that brief chat with the coach helped Richa. It wasn’t just Richa who took part in the fielding session. Jemimah Rodrigues, one of the better fielders in the side, and Asha Sobhana, also were involved in an intense session.
“We are working on it. If you notice, the errors are quite less than what it was earlier,” said Aavishkar Salvi, the Indian bowling coach, in the presser. “So, there has been a lot of improvement in that aspect. Girls and the support staff, everybody is motivated towards it as well. If you see yesterday, barring a few errors, the speed of the girls was superb. The angle cutting was nice and the way they were moving across the field was great,” he added.
A die-hard cricket fan of the Indian women’s team may not agree with some of the points made by Salvi. Although to some extent Salvi is right in saying ‘the angle cutting’ was better yesterday. Especially around the deep square leg and long-off regions, the Indian fielders were able to do the job, with the ball moving towards and away from them. Unfortunately, that was juxtaposed by the dropped catch and quite a few misfields.
The fielding wasn’t the only talking point during the practice session. Pooja Vastrakar, the pace-bowling all-rounder, undertook a light fitness session gingerly. Salvi, though, noted there were no fitness concerns surrounding Pooja. “When you have enough bowling options, one of them will go under-bowled. It is nothing related to any injury or fitness issues.”
Ahead of the crucial game against arch-rivals, Pakistan, India have enough issues to think about as they were outgunned and outclassed by New Zealand. All eyes would again be zoomed in on India’s fielding. Hopefully, all those training sessions would reap rewards for the Indian side.