Brad Haddin leads Australia's unique fielding practice for upcoming South Africa series

After the crunching Ashes victory, Australia’s one of the major aims will be Test series victory against South Africa. Australia is set to visit South Africa for 4-match Test series which begins on 1st of March. Australia’s skipper Steve Smith was granted a break from the T20 tri-series after Australia lost the 5-match ODI series 4-1 to England. One would think the Australian skipper wanted a proper break to prepare well for all-important series against the Protea.

The Australian side has already started preparing for the tough tour as they were seen sweating during their 3-hour long unique fielding practice in Benoni. Under the eyes of fielding coach Brad Haddin and assistant coach David Saker, Steve Smith and team during the session tried a number of fielding positions and methods.

There was one unique method which kept everyone guessing as to what kind of method fielding coach Hadding was trying. During the drill, Haddin had a white bed sheet held up by a pair of steel poles. A fielder and thrower were positioned either side of the bed sheet. The thrower threw the ball from his end while the fielder had to guess which way the ball comes and accordingly try and stop the ball.

Wanted players to react to the ball: Haddin

Interestingly, the bouncy pitches of South Africa sometimes offer uneven bounce while sometimes the ball comes at the fielder very quickly and the fielder gets very less time to react and grab the catch. It seemed like Haddin had that in mind and wanted his players to be ready for the ball which will come to them quickly.

Speaking about the same, fielding coach mentioned that the idea was that he wanted players to react to the ball coming their way without knowing which way the ball will come. “We didn’t want them to get any cues from the thrower, so we needed to put a bed sheet there, so the boys just reacted to what they did,” Haddin told cricket.com.au.

South Africa recently beat number 1 ranked India in a three-match Test series 2-1 and the way the Aussies have been preparing one would expect the series will be a hard-fought one.

Here’s the video of the drill: