Three slips, two gullies, a point — for generations, the arc behind the batsman on the off-side was a clear pointer that Test match cricket was on. Fast bowlers would steam in at the batsman with the sole intention of clinching that classical dismissal — the delivery seaming away, searching for the outside edge of the bat, with fielders in a half-squat wait to play their roles.

The Bangalore Test was different, though. With the slips vanishing quicker than the shine on the new ball, unorthodox placements became the new order over the five days. The Australians, in particular, regularly employed silly mid-off, silly-mid on, mid-on, short-mid-wicket, short square-leg, deep backward square-leg, even as their quicks steamed in. In fact, Ricky Ponting even had a sweeper out on the off side for most part, a ploy repeated by Anil Kumble as boundaries were at a premium and singles remained the source of survival.

“Actually, the new field setting takes a lot of toll on the batsman,” confesses a Team India player, on condition of anonymity. “Even though I didn’t score too many runs, I felt exhausted as I had to concentrate much more with this setting. First you had to pick the right delivery to hit, then you had to make sure the ball was placed in the right area as there weren’t many open spaces and finally, it was important to keep the ball down due to the number of catchers in front of the wicket. From a batsman’s perspective, we often tend to play shots with a set mindset of a Test field. Bangalore was different,” he says, adding that these kinds of fields were here to stay.

... contd.