What India Needs To Work on for Bagging the WC? Its Perhaps Fielding

On sub-continent’s pitches, which are considered rather batting friendly, the experts regard bowling strength of the teams as the decisive factor in the coming World Cup cricket. But in case of India, the team may also have to equally emphasize upon maintaining
quality fielding.

In batting department, the team no doubts rightly boasts to have world’s best side, the bowling too is not that bad, but when it comes to fielding, except Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, we hardly see any player near to the international standards.

MS Dhoni, the skipper of the team would surely be well aware of the fact that he could not hide seven players in the field, and hence, would be striving to bring the required improvement in the team so that not many catches are missed during the mega event
where performance in each and every match counts a lot.

Unlike the international rivals like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, who, regardless of their batting or bowling strengths, always maintain an enviable standard of fielding, India has never dwelled upon working out this crucial
aspect of the one-day format of the game.

While playing for team India, if you are relatively good with the ball or the bat, you do not require to be equally splendid with the field. Even Raina and Kohli, who are best among the lot as far as fielding is concerned, do not get many direct hits; this
is because the Indian players do not understand the difference between a run-out and a missed opportunity at a crucial stage yet.

As stated earlier, Indian players have a mindset according to which if they have proficiency in any one of the three skills, it is more than enough to overcome their shortcomings in rest of the two departments. For instance, Zaheer Khan has emerged as a
dangerous bowler, over the years, he has been working upon his batting as well, but as far as fielding is concerned, he is rather stagnant, as good as he was when he started to play the game.

Yet, he is far better than the pace colleagues Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel who have been rather embarrassing on the field. Yuvraj Singh, who has polished himself as a reliable all-rounder, used to be a stunning fielder. Perhaps it was his fielding on the
basis of which he made his way to the national team, but now, when it is about taking care of the ball on the field, he is merely a shadow of what he used to be a few years ago. Despite of still being in his twenties, he has given himself a lose hand in maintaining
his physique, and instead of maintaining a light body, he does not care about carrying extra weight around.

Another important reason which hinders the Indian players from being quick behind the ball is their age. The average age of the Indian players is around 30, but ironically, Sachin Tendulkar at 37, perhaps the oldest of them all is far better than rest of
the teammates. He, in fact, sets example by depicting a willingness to chase everything coming down. He never misses a catch and most of the times have remained reliable on the field, but unfortunately, the young players hardly bother to follow his example.

When teams are put together for larger events, all of the sides usually have equally qualified players for a single slot, and what common sense dictates is that in such situations only the better fielders play the decisive role.

Another crucial part of the problem is the frequent emergence of fitness issues in the team. As the battles in the World Cup would get severe, matches will be decided in the favours of the teams with better fitness level depicting a better fielding on the
ground. A run-out against the grain of play or an unexpected catch will surely change the face of a match, and if the Indian players would miss such opportunities, they would most probably make mess out of them.