5 Easy Tips To Improve Your Fielding

Here we are,  everyone might be training really hard to improve your cricketing skills during this lockdown.  And I have come here with 5 very easy tips to improve your Fielding Skills.  We have seen about the tips in Batting Skills in the last blog and now we are going to focus about the Fielding.  The fielding aspect is an important one in the game of cricket and most of us would have encountered problems in receiving, catching, throwing,  and many more fielding related problems.  Sports Curator is going to give you some valuable points so that you may get solutions to your problems.

1.  THE STANCE:

                        Most of you may ask what effect does stance has to do with our fielding skillset.  The Stance that I am speaking here is the position in which you stand to encounter the ball.   Mostly fielders inside the 30 yard circle have to stand in a position that is below upright and above half stance.  The point that I am looking to make here is you have to stand in a position that is not a half sitting position or a normal upright standing position.  You have to bend your knees and hips in such a way that you could reach out balls which come above your chest and below your knees.  This pictorial representation might help you.

Look At Those Fielders And Their Stance You Should Follow Those.

  An important thing is that you should not stand still, you have to slowly move forward when the bowler nears the popping crease and stop when the batsman hits the ball and you have to move towards it.  And fielders inside the circle must be quick reactors, their reaction time must be very quick.

                         In the outfield, that is outside the 30 yard circle, you need not bend your body like fielding inside the 30 yard circle.  Mostly, fielders in the boundary would be the bowlers, so they can relax a bit and then slowly walk frontwards and watch the delivery closely and then react according to the shot and the placement of the shot.  The outfielders have to be very quick while sprinting, because they have to accelerate very quickly and move very fast to chase the ball, and the composure is very important, you have to keep a cool head to chase ball and take it correctly and throw it to the correct end.  It is more easy to chase a ball from behind, rather than chasing it side wards, because we can run at our full speed when chasing a ball from behind, but we cannot apply our full speed while chasing it sidewards.  So Outfielders have to be lightning quick, other wise you would end up conceding a boundary or an extra run when ever the ball comes at your region.

2.  NEVER ENCOUNTER A BALL, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS RECIEVE IT,

                            Most of us make a very common mistake.  We have hard, rigid hands and apply more force while taking the catch.  Whenever you take a catch, you should have a cool, and calm mind and recieve the ball instead of encountering.  That is you have to keep loose hands and your palm should be facing your side.  You can understand easily by having a look at this picture.  Questions may arise, what should we do when the situation is to reach out for the catch?  There are many situations that force us to reach out for the catch.  Such as diving in front,  diving sidewards.  Loose hands is the only option, because if you keep hard hands that is if you give a lot of pressure in your hands and make it rigid and then if you try to dive in front to gather a ball, you will drop it for sure.  When you keep loose and pressure less hands, you can easily grasp the ball, simple physics might help you with this.  When you throw a ball into a rigid wall, it bounces back, because the wall applies same amount of force that is applied by the ball.  But if you throw it into a less rigid or a loosely packed surface, it does not bounce back and it gets recieved by the surface.  The same feature applies while taking a catch, if you keep a rigid surfaced hand then you are going to drop the ball defenitely, because the ball bounces out of the hands very easily. 

                           Also everyone might have seen coaches requesting players to drag their hand back in a legible speed while taking a catch.

The Perfect Mechanism Of Taking A Catch

  This is because the ball comes with a really greater speed and when we catch it our hands act as a wall, so the ball may bounce back, this is because of inability to spread the pressure applied by the ball.  Keeping a loose hand must be accompanied by dragging the hands slowly and gradually back with the momentum of the ball.  So now the pressure is equally exerted in all areas and the ball equally releases all of the energy it gained during the shot.  So physics has a big role in field sports such as cricket, football, hockey.

3.  CONCENTRATION AND ANTICIPATION:

                                 Cricket is a sport which involves more work from our brain.  Concentration is the key to success in cricket, whether it may be batting or it may be bowling or fielding, concentration is really very important.  Concentration has big effects in fielding.  You have to concentrate on each and every ball.

Concentration And Anticipation Are The Key Elements In Slip Fielding.

  You may see cricketers chatting in the field during the play discussing and etc., but they are trained in a way that they always have an eye in the game.  Whenever a fielder loses his concentration on the game, he drops a catch or makes a misfield. 

                                  Apart fro concentration, there is another key element that makes a fielder a better one.  Anticipation.  Anticipation is very important during fielding, it may not help while batting or bowling, but it really helps during fielding.  You have to anticipate that every ball comes to you.  You have to be ready to catch a ball at any time.  You have to anticipate during every delivery.  You should not let your head down even if no balls had come to your position.  Because sometimes we let our head down and lack anticipation and slowly lose our concentration.  This leads to a misfield.  So it is key that you have to think that the every ball might come to you.  One of the great examples is Indian Captain Virat Kohli.  When he is fielding in the inner circle or at the boundary line, he always comes forward and commits himself, even if the ball does not come to him.  That level of anticipation is the one which has made him a really superb fielder.

4.  JUDGEMENT:

                                   Judging the ball is another important aspect in fielding.  Judging the ball is really very helpful for the outfielders.  Because the ball would be coming from a long distance, so you have to judge the pace and height of the ball precisely and then move according to it.  All of these should take place in a matter of seconds, only then you could catch it successfully.  Some times players over run and miss it and some times players do not commit in quickly and fall short.  So judging the ball is very important.  When you are in the outfield, ball can come to you frequently in the death overs, so it is mandatory to fix a position and then run towards it.  You should never make judgement mistakes, because it will definitely cost you the catch.  Judging while the ball has some speed on it is relatively easy, but it is very difficult to judge a ball which is straight up in the air. 

The Key Is To Get Underneath The Ball, Watching It Closely And Pouncing On It.

Because the ball will not have any speed in it so it may wobble up in the air.  So what you have to do is to get set in a position that is underneath the ball and then receive it.

5.  PHYSICAL FITNESS AND PRACTICE IS THE KEY:

                                  Fitness is the base product to achive success in fielding.  Fitness along with practice is the one which would make you as a really good fielder.  You have to keep your body fit at everytime to be a good fielder.  If you take Yuvraj Singh, he works a lot for his fielding, but when he lost his fitness, yuvi seemed like the worst fielder in the world.  So fitness is not the only important thing, practice and hard work also are the key elements in fielding.  You have to take at least a 120 low catches and 100 high catches per day to be a fielding monster.  I your primary position is at the Slips, then you do not need to take a lot of High catches.  You have to double your low catches count. 

                                   Bowlers also have to take ample amount of catching practice.  I would suggest them to concentrate only on their throwing, ground fielding, and high catches.  It is the batsmen who have to concentrate on all aspects of fielding such as throwing, ground work, high catches and low catches. 

                                    Don't leave just yet, I have one more important tip for you it is more than a tip.  When proceeding to take high catches, please make your call that it is your catch, because making a call will reduce the confusion between another fielder, who could take that catch, because once the ball goes up, all of the 15 men including the umpires and the opponent batsman would be looking up.  Some times there may be two fielders coming towards a ball and if any one of them calls it is my catch, then one who has not called will stop proceeding to take the catch.

Collisions Take Place When You Do Not Call..

  So the man who called will easily take it for his team.  Some times when neither of them had called, confusion arise and both collide each other and drop the catch which could prove really very costly.  Apart from dropping the catch both of them could be seriously injured

                                      The fielding mistakes are the ones which could be game changers in tight situations.  An over throw or a misfield or a drop catch at a crucial point of the game could really turn out to be the game changer in the match.  Some times when a player is dropped very early in the innings they go on to make really big scores.  A great example is Rohit Sharma, who has scored a hundred each and every time when he is dropped inside a score of 30.