Ganesh
I agree with you about our lack of fielding improvement, to a certain degree. Our groundfielding has tremendously improved over a last few years, not counting the recent test match, where we were pretty shoddy. Catching is another matter and we have been consistently dropping catches in every test macth. Though it was never as comical as the last test, we have been dropping catches regularly in every test matches. In West Indies we dropped many catches in the test matches. We have no decent slip catcher except hannan ( he is out of the squad ). Bashar is a lethargic fielder and a worse slip fielder. Then we put Rana in the slips, who was caught napping with his hands on his knees, when he let Ganguly off with a straight forward catch. Fielding in the slips is a state of mind matter. You have to be sharp, have good reflexes, have to understand the game and adjust your positioning depending on the batsman and the particular bowler. Coaching comes into play here. We often take the wrong angle or stay too close to each other. One example : tendulkar at one point, when he was on 159, tried to sweep rafique and manged a mini top edge which balloned in the air. Rana was the lone slip fielder. Since the ball balloned, it stayed in the air a while, but Rana was standing too far. Still, had he jumped forward, instead of sideways, he may have caught that ball.
We must nurture and groom one or two players, who are automatic in the squad, as specialist slip fielders. If we ignore this aspect of the game, people like Mashrafee and his efforts will go unrewarded. They are a fast bowlers best friend. Ask McGrath, Ambrose etc..and see how many times they were helped by Mark waugh, Mark Taylor, Viv Richards and Richie Richardson. I always felt for Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in this regard. Combined they could have 100 hundred more wkts in test matches if not for their sub-par slip fielders..
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