Pakistani fielding

[NZ Guy]

I know Pakistan have never been great fielders but is this Pakistani team the worst fielding side ever in international cricket and whats it down to? do they not focus on fielding at all in youth development or something?

A lot of the catches they have dropped over the past two tours are catches club cricketers even school boys would snaffle easily, the Kaneria drop off Watson looked like he was scared of the ball and possibly the worst drop ive seen in a test, so hats the answer?

 

[Jayzamann]

Seeing a montage of Akmal's drops of Hussey are almost comical. They're such complete sitters it is mind boggling that he dropped one, let alone three.

 

[Top_Cat]

oz of the mid 80's with slugs like hogg is tough to beat. Had better keepers but the rest....

 

[vic_orthdox]

I chuckle when I hear them talk about how hard they are working on their fielding at the moment. Not that I doubt them, more the fact that if you don't do much on it in the first 10 years of playing cricket (which seems pretty apparent) then you're never going to be a natural fielder.

 

[Uppercut]

You should have seen the clips of them practicing their fielding against New Zealand, it was hilarious. They're not working hard, they're just paying lip-service to the idea of practice.

 

[Shri]

You guys have obviously not seen Bhajji's drop today then.

 

[NZ Guy]

You guys have obviously not seen Bhajji's drop today then.

Zaheer Khan's run out?

India are god fielders!!!

 

[Shri]

Zaheer Khan's run out?

India are god fielders!!!

You get lucky at times.

 

[silentstriker]

Fielding has to start much earlier than the Test team. In India and Pakistan, it's not properly taught from a school-age. So people don't care, and don't want to field well. You have to want the ball to come to you every ball, and you have to put real effort into it. By the time you've reached international level, there is only so much you can do.

 

[silentstriker]

Zaheer Khan hitting the stumps from the deep is flukier than Amit Mishra running out Ricky Ponting.

 

[chaminda_00]

Fielding has to start much earlier than the Test team. In India and Pakistan, it's not properly taught from a school-age. So people don't care, and don't want to field well. You have to want the ball to come to you every ball, and you have to put real effort into it. By the time you've reached international level, there is only so much you can do.

That is a pretty poor generalism. Yeah in terms of ground fielding there pretty poor. But interms of catching there are players that as good as others in world cricket. The ground fielding is more to do with the poor quality grounds at school-age cricket.

This Pakistan side has some really poor fielders. But that just cus those fielders are poor. It wouldn't have matter how much work at youth level they had. However in saying that if you add Malik, Younis, Afridi and Razzaq for example that side would be half decent. The indivuals are poor, it has very little to go with the nationality.

 

[slowfinger]

Well init but yeah Pakistan field appauling at times but brilliantly(take Shahid Afridi's catch in t20 wc) when they ahve that boost, they perform on adrenaline and normally that's what makes them unstoppable or in most cases sloppy.

 

[SJS]

I have a theory to explain what I think are over all falling standards in fielding in general contrary to popular belief.

I think the fantastic level that people like Jonty Rhodes brougfht fielding to, led to a considerable increase in feverish physical activity amongst young fielders which brought us some spectacular efforts close in as well as brilliant throw in in all odd body positions on the ground or off it. Fielders also threw them at balls as they got closer to the boundary and made some very impressive saves even though some of them got entangled with the ball lost in their body and sometimes crossed the boundary without the fielder having a clue as to where it was.

I suspect that we have seen in recent years a great emphasis on what I think is best described by the phrase "feverish, frantic, desperate physical activity". This has made many people proclaim that the fielding standards are the best the game has ever seen. This claim needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Its true that over all fielders are putting in more physical effort in their running and are throwing themselves more at the ball (not always when it is the best option). However, their seems to be a reduced emphasis on the basic technique of fielding. Many people seem to think that fielding is all physical effort (hence the young man is always better than the senior citizen) and completely ignore the fact that their is a sound basis for fielding that has to be taught to youngsters just as in batting and bowling. Pick up and throw is so poor today that it is not even funny any more. The use of both hands wherever possible seems to have been forgotten as has the positioning of the hands, steadiness of the head, focussing of the eyes etc. I am shocked at the number of high catches that are dropped today. These are not just balls dropping as if from outer space but just regular high hits as different from sharp fast flat hits. The longer time a fielder has to hold the catch the more he seems likely to drop it it seems. This is just poor technique in most cases. One is also amazed at how many fielders are avoiding to go for the catch in the outfield when they would have, even ten years ago, have made an all out effort to take the catch. What's shocking is that when this happens the commentators invariably end up saying things like the "ball dropped short". I am sixty and with great regret at sounding boastful and worse let me state what I have thought so many times in the last few years. Even till about 15 years ago, I would have been better at catching in the outfield than almost all the sub-continental cricketers of this day and age. It is deplorable and the coaches at all levels should be ashamed of what we are seeing.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Fielding has to start much earlier than the Test team. In India and Pakistan, it's not properly taught from a school-age. So people don't care, and don't want to field well. You have to want the ball to come to you every ball, and you have to put real effort into it. By the time you've reached international level, there is only so much you can do.

Old dogs, new tricks? This is basically what Yousuf said a while back, isn't it? He sounded extremely hopeless talking about it, as though there's literally nothing that can be done with the current crop.

 

[Polo23]

The ground fielding is more to do with the poor quality grounds at school-age cricket.

Disagree with this. All of my schoolboy and early club cricket was played on fields that were converted rugby pitches. So in winter they were destroyed with rugby/football, then come summer they were used as cricket fields. So whenever I played cricket in those early years the grounds were incredibly uneven, and you'd often wear a rolling ball in the chin from a dodgy bounce. However, we always worked hard on our fielding and i'm ashamed/happy to say fielding is probably the strongest part of my game. Having poor grounds is no excuse for not being able to field for mine.

 

[bryce]

Yeah i'd say, it's so rare in NZ club/school cricket to have a quality outfield.

 

[Top_Cat]

yep and nz has been among the best fielding sides for years. Can barely remember a really poor fielder from nz in recent times.

 

[NZ Guy]

What are grounds like in Aus, Eng etc always presumed they'd be similar to what weve got

 

[Cruxdude]

Most Indian kids do not play on proper grounds for a long time. We play wherever we get place and the public grounds that we use don't have any grass they are just huge places of vacant land with stones lying every where. So generally no one jumps around. But, catching has always been pretty good in the places I play.

 

[vic_orthdox]

What are grounds like in Aus, Eng etc always presumed they'd be similar to what weve got

Generally "decent", I'd say.

I'm loving driving around Melbourne again, now that heaps of the grounds have been converted to summer grass, and they are all green again. Makes such a change to the past couple of summers, where all the parks and cricket grounds were a mixture of yellow and grey, dead grass and dust.