You can understand batsmen struggling to come to terms with the bounce or the bowlers discovering that there is life beyond holding the ball seam up and hitting the deck hard in South Africa. But how does one explain catches going down? In T20 cricket we have now reached a stage where fielding standards are expected to be high; where really, an ordinary fielder rather than a brilliant one, should stand out. That hasn’t happened because the fielding has been pretty average and that is disappointing.

Jonty Rhodes threw some light on it a few days ago when he talked about the difference between playing on the coast (Capetown, Port Elizabeth) and playing on the highlands (Johannesburg, Pretoria) or the highveld as they are called here. Because of the high altitude the ball travels further and so fielders might find the ball going a bit behind them as they wait for it. More interestingly, he said, the ball comes down much faster than you think it is going to and so you can be caught out of position. The obvious solution therefore is to practise a lot of skiers. Now while Jonty’s local knowledge, and his enormous skill, clears the air a bit, it still doesn’t explain why fielders are not catching more high balls in practice. Or maybe they are and it isn’t working. In fact, I remember a game in East London where the Chennai Super Kings had again dropped a few, catching practice had begun even as the presentation was going on.

Another reason put forward is that with the onset of winter, the sun sets early and the twilight zone lingers for a while. That kind of light is brilliant for television cameramen giving you lovely images but not quite so for the fielders trying to sight a ball. Remember too that many grounds in South Africa are quite open, not tall concrete structures that block everything, and so the effect of the setting sun may get accentuated. I’d like to believe that is a factor but I would also like to believe that the huge coaching contingents that teams carry around these days would have evolved a solution by now. Unless of course it is, as multiple choice question papers often offer you as an option, ‘none of the above’ and that fielders are just not concentrating enough. Whatever the reason, it is not a great spectacle and you cannot have players at this level, being paid what they are, to falter in a crucial, but fundamental, aspect of cricket.

Having said that I was hoping to see something new at the IPL and I now have. Last year Shaun Pollock introduced the loopy bouncer to T20 cricket. Hitherto, slower balls were fuller and only the likes of Venkatesh Prasad used to bowl it mid-pitch. Now Pollock was almost bowling a fast off break about halfway through and getting it to rise like a normal bouncer but only much slower. This year we have seen a thrilling variation on the old scoop shot played over fine leg. Most often that was played at about forty-five degrees or occasionally finer, maybe thirty degrees. Now twice in two days we have seen it played back over the wicketkeeper’s head (“back over the bowler’s head” used to be a favourite commentary line in the days gone by!!). It means of course that you move your own head out of line first and stop short of hitting the wicketkeeper on the helmet if he is standing up. Even more astonishingly, both Brendon McCullum and Tillakaratne Dilshan, managed to clear the boundary with it. It is thrilling to watch and just shows you how this game evolves with time, and with changing requirements.

On another note I must confess to being a bit embarrassed at seeing the ages alongside the names of some of the players. Either there is an ageing pill that is taking effect too quickly, or we are seeing a major evolutionary change or people are just lying brazenly. I suspect we know the right answer and it is not “none of the above” this time. It must be stamped out now.