Look at fielding in the deep for example. You need quick legs and strong arms so the two can be kept down to one and the boundary down to three, even to two sometimes. Look around this squad and find five players who can do that. Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Kaarthick, Ajit Agarkar, Robin Uthappa, Sachin Tendulkar, maybe Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Piyush Chawla. Decent list? Okay, if all of them are playing but certainly not when four of those cannot find a place. And what if the captain wants Yuvraj inside the circle? Who goes out? Ganguly can’t, Dravid can’t, Zaheer can’t, Powar can’t and Munaf certainly can’t. And what about RP Singh who, as a young man should be here, there and everywhere but isn’t. That is about thirty runs gone straightaway, assuming no catches are dropped.

Interestingly, India have always been a decent catching side, but even that seems to have been left behind, like baggage increasingly is at Heathrow. To me it suggests that people are switching off in the deep, not expecting, let alone beseeching, every ball to come to them. Indeed, that last expression isn’t the most appropriate either because the ball is not expected to go to the fielder but the other way around. And so, India are effectively a bowler down because the fielding is expected to play the part of an extra bowler in limited overs cricket.

So why have we come to this stage? Because we have always looked upon fielding as an additional degree not as basic education. Not everyone can be a Jonty, or a Ponting or a Symonds or a Collingwood. But if you want to be an economist you must know mathematics, if you want to be an athlete you must know a fair bit about food and diets. That is why I believe, and I remember saying this five years ago, that coaches at India’s hyped but ineffective academies must take most of the blame. If a 17-year-old isn’t told that without being a fine fielder he is compromising on his future, then the teacher is no good. Neither is the student but sometimes you need to be shown what you cannot see.

... contd.