Slipping in the cordon

Barring the period when the slip cordon was manned by Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman/Sehwag, India's record when it comes to slip catching has been largely inconsistent.

Bengaluru: In a recent show on ESPNCricinfo, Anil Kumble was given the task of finalising the best Indian slip fielder by canceling one of the two options till you arrive at a conclusion. His final two choices boiled down to Mohammed Azharuddin and Rahul Dravid after eliminating Sanjay Manjrekar, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli. And Dravid was his top pick. Kumble’s opinion doesn’t step from a bias towards his team-mates or those who took most catches off his bowling. It’s an overwhelming consensus that Dravid, Laxman, a floating member at slips, and with Kumble himself at gully, formed arguably India’s best cordon behind the wickets.

The game Kumble was asked to play was evidently in the backdrop of India’s inability to hold onto a number of offers in close-in field in the first Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series in Leeds. Those dropped chances, if taken, could have potentially turned the game towards India, and one need not look beyond the second Test which, at the end of Day 4, stood overwhelmingly in favour of Gill and Co thanks to their greater conversion rate of chances in the slips.

Barring the period when the slip cordon was manned by Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag/ Tendulkar India’s record when it comes to slip catching has been largely inconsistent. While their overall fielding ability in terms of fitness, agility and intensity has vastly improved -- a particular demand in white-ball cricket -- their show in spips has remained a concern, marked by high quality catching and curiously sub-standard effort. While the team still has some fine slip fielders, the collective performance of the current setup and those in the recent past hasn’t quite lived up to that legacy.

Let’s break down various facets of this recurring problem and explore the factors contributing to India’s slip-catching challenges.

Let’s face it, slip catching is a specialist’s job. You can’t just make anyone and everyone stand there and expect them to do the job. It requires not only sharp reflexes and good technique but also years of practice during and after formative years.

Former India cricketer-turned-commentator Vijay Bharadwaj gives an interesting perspective on why Dravid and Laxman, who otherwise weren’t exactly known for their agility on the field, excelled in slips.

“I won’t say either Rahul or Laxman were great overall fielders, but very early in their careers they turned their disadvantage into advantage by polishing their skills in close-in field,” he points out. “If you see, they have fielded most of their careers in the slips - for Karnataka or Hyderabad, South Zone and obviously India. You couldn’t imagine slip cordon without them at any level. But to excel there, they spent hours practicing close-in catching. Everyday they would take hundreds of catches whether simulated (at centre pitch) or off the board. They took as much pride in their catching as their batting,” he explains.

Slip catching is also about cohesion among the cordon and is deeply dependent on team synergy. If one player’s movement or reaction is even slightly off, the whole cordon can suffer. If there’s no understanding, you can see balls fly by without anyone attempting but expecting others to. That missing harmony has plagued India more than once.

That perhaps explains why slip catching suffered in the first Test for it was a totally new set-up with only KL Rahul being the constant from the previous series. That said, India need to identify the right fielders for the right place. One has to enjoy the position where he is fielding to be successful there.

That’s where former Aussie wicketkeeper-batter Brad Haddin’s observations hit hard. Having also been witness to some ordinary work in the field by the Indians during his stint with Punjab Kings during 18th edition of IPL, Haddin feels “attitude adjustment” is the need of the hour.

“Every great team, no matter what era you are playing, the one standout they’ve always had... they’ve been great fielding teams. And, I think, that’s the one legacy (Shubman) Gill can start to leave now on this team,” Haddin said in his Willow Talk podcast after the Leeds Test.

“It needs an attitude adjustment if you want to field well and compete the whole time, it’s only attitude,” Haddin added.

Slip catching is as much about mental discipline as it is about physical skill. A fielder standing in the slips may go an entire session without a single ball coming his way. Yet, when that one edge finally flies off the bat, he must be razor-sharp; his body and mind should be in perfect sync to pouch that.

Bharadwaj stresses on the willingness to work hard. “It’s not easy standing the whole day in one position, bending and getting up every ball. It takes a heavy toll on the body and that can affect your concentration. In a day you may have two or three catches coming your way, and you have to be prepared for those moments. You need to be focussed enough to pick the ball with the crowd in the background. So your technique, fitness and concentration all become important here; if one is missing, the catch too goes missing.”

That brings us to the question: Is slip-catching adequately prioritised in Indian cricket’s ecosystem? The answer is complex. It’s not just about skills, but about culture as well.

Historically, Indian domestic cricket has placed more emphasis on batting, bowling and then fielding and in that order. While this has changed to a great extent as professionalism has set in in recent decades with more attention to fitness and fielding drills, the specific training and culture around slip catching is still lacking.

"Why I come back to Dravid and Laxman is they played a lot of first-class matches," Bharadwaj says. "While there are still first-class matches, the focus is shared with white-ball cricket where you wouldn't have slip-catchers most of the time. Why Karun Nair has been so good in slips this series is because he has come here on the back of a lot of first-class matches where he has stood in slips for hours."

Even taking for granted that all this has been taken care of, slip-catching challenges vary according to change in conditions. The challenge in the sub-continent is quite different from what you encounter in England or Australia -- each with their own unique difficulties. Accordingly, your technique should be good enough to adjust to those differing environs.

"The challenge in the sub-continent is the ball keeps low, and sometimes falls just in front of you," points out Bharadwaj. "You need to know where you should stand in order to give yourself the best chance to reach the ball. Obviously, there are a lot of catches off spin bowling, and this is where Rahul was so good at. The anticipation, the angle and what the bowler is bowling... In England, most often, the ball swirls just in front of you, so you need to take it beside your body, not in front of it. These are minute adjustments, but go a long way in taking or dropping a catch," he analyses.

Bharadwaj also agrees that when Indian players make the jump to international cricket, they suddenly find themselves having to catch balls coming at 140+ kmph, often moving unpredictably. The transition is too sudden. It’s like preparing for a storm by training in a drizzle.

In conclusion, India’s slip-catching problems aren’t about lack of talent -- they are about structure and specialisation, attitude and hard work. While slip-catching may not win matches on its own, it can lose them. Fielding excellence, including in slips, must, therefore, become non-negotiable going forward.