Close-in catching and its importance on India's tour of Australia 

The Indians will shortly be embarking on their tour to Australia with a lot of optimism, although their recent series in England was a let down from a result perspective.

While there will be a lot of noise made about team selection, batting orders, combination of the playing XI etc, one of the most critical things, particularly in Test cricket, which tends to get overlooked is close-in catching.

India would do well to place a lot of emphasis on this aspect of fielding, the standards of which have sadly declined over the years. India certainly have the necessary ammunition to do well overseas and if the dropped chances were gobbled up in England, who knows, the series scoreline could have been a lot different.

In the only Test match that India won in England, the team took almost all the catch that it came their way with KL Rahul picking up quite a few in slips. It would be something that the Indians should consciously work on before their tour of Australia.

In the years gone by, assured close-in catching was a key element of the team that has dominated world cricket especially in the long format. The West Indies in the Eighties and the Australian teams of the Nineties and early 2000s hardly missed anything and even convert the half chances. You do not have to look beyond Mark Taylor and Mark Waugh in the slips for the Australians.

Even earlier Indian squads had excellent slip catchers like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, who were both good at slips of medium pacers as well as spinners. It was never easy to be at slips for a bowler like Anil Kumble because of the trajectory that he bowled but Rahul Dravid was so good with his hands and have produced many key wickets in Tests.

So what has happened suddenly and why don’t India produce good slip catchers? Well, there could be a couple of factors that has led to the decline of the quality of close in catching in India even as our fielding and out fielding has improved tremendously.

Not enough match practice

The first and most obvious factor could be that the test cricketers are not standing at slips or any other close in position as much and the only time they maybe standing is in the Test matches.

Because of their busy schedule, most Indian players who are part of the Test side hardly play any longer duration matches at domestic level. This means the only time the players get used to close in catches is in the training sessions which is completely different when it comes to taking them in actual match situation.

Lack of flexibility and reflexes

The second, more subtle reason could be the amount of importance given to fitness (as against cricket fitness) which might have a tendency of reducing the flexibility of the players. One of the keys to good close in fielding is sharp reflexes as anybody who has played cricket will tell you.

If you ask players of earlier eras and players today on the time they would have spent in the gym, there would be no prizes for guessing the answers. It is possible that the amount of time spent in the gyms has an over all impact on the flexibility aspect.

Too much shuffling of personnel

Slip catching and for that matter, any close in field positions require good reflexes to go with soft hands. Unfortunately not all are blessed with these two and that’s why teams pick the players who are good at both and usually become the slip fielders for their respective teams.

It is not easy if you keep juggling players at slips, especially against pacemen in overseas conditions. After all these Tests in South Africa and England (8 in total), this Indian side is still not sure who will be their first, second and third slip fielders in Tests in Australia.

KL Rahul, who took few catches at second slip should remain a constant at second slip throughout the tour of Australia(hoping that he plays) and Rahane should not move out of slips while the spinners are operating.

Over a period of time, India should identify their best close in catchers and stick with them for a while and that's the only way they can get confident and we can see a lot more going in rather out.

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The people that run Indian cricket including at junior levels might want to closely look into these aspects for the longer term i.e exposure to longer duration matches and the correlation between fitness (muscle building etc) and flexibility and what would be the best mix.

Catches win matches and close in catching in Tests are especially crucial.