Blessed to have fast bowlers who are good athletes, says R Sridhar

Team India’s fielding coach R Sridhar is all pleased with the way the Indian team is shaping up. They were never known as a fielding juggernaut in world cricket. However, the recent years have witnessed the standards of Indian fielding rise to a new level. In a conversation with Cricbuzz after the 1st ODI against New Zealand, he spoke on how the fielding has been improving.

Umesh Yadav was seen taking a blinder to send Corey Anderson packing in the first ODI. Sridhar expressed that the team is blessed to have fast bowlers who are great in the field too. He cited Yadav’s example to illustrate his point. The fielding coach rightly pointed how Umesh has a strong arm and runs in fast too.

“We’re really blessed to have some fast bowlers in the team who are very good athletes. Umesh is obviously fabulous, he’s got a good arm and goes really well across the ground,” said R Sridhar after the match.

He believes that it is Umesh’s effort that has helped him improve his fielding. He revealed that the fast bowler spends extra time on his ground-fielding and catching in the practice sessions. This has certainly helped him take an edge over other fast bowlers and is now leaving a benchmark for others.

Also Watch: Umesh Yadav takes a stunner to send Corey Anderson packing

“Umesh is an exception in that terms. It is not just because of his athleticism that he is good, it is also the fact that he puts in quite a bit of yards during practice sessions in terms of his catching and fielding. That’s probably given him the edge and set a new benchmark as far as fast bowlers fielders are concerned,” he said.

Sridhar also explained that the captains and the coach are keen on developing multi-specialty fielders. Gone are those days when a particular fielder fielded at the same position. The different phases of the game have different demands and hence this approach is the most ideal.

“We try and develop multi-speciality fielders rather than sticking to specialist fielders. That is what the aim is for this fielding team which comes down from MS Dhoni, Virat and Anil Kumble himself. They give equal importance to fielding as you would do to any other skill and try and create multi-specialist fielders wherein the team benefits in terms of different phases of the game,” he conceded.

Indian fielding coach also opined that Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja are the fielders with the most powerful and accurate throw in the current Indian squad.