To be honest, we have not fielded well: Cheteshwar Pujara

Team India got very close to a win in the Delhi Test but a strong resistance from the Sri Lankan side forced them to settle for a draw. When seen on the large scale, the team had almost ticked all their boxes right in the match. But the fielding was one area where the team would want to improve. Indian batting mainstay Cheteshwar Pujara, as per the quotes in Zee News, totally agrees to this fact.

During the Delhi Test, there were several instances of dropped catches by the Indian fielders. The most common ones were seen in the first slip. Commenting on the fielding woes, Cheteshwar Pujara noted that the seasoned slip fielders had been out of action and hence had to be replaced. Obviously, it was not easy for the ones replacing them to get their act correct.

“To be honest we haven’t fielded well and I would accept that. At the same time there have been injuries with someone like M Vijay, who used to be at first slip didn’t, not playing for six months. So we had to replace Vijay with someone else. We haven’t taken many catches but we will definitely get better at it. Overall, the Indian team has improved as fielding unit, but slip fielding is something we are still looking to improve,” quoted Cheteshwar Pujara.

He further added that it is tough to pin point the reasons for their failure in the field. However, he assured that the team is giving their hundred per cent to do everything right on the field. The team will certainly improve in the days to come.

“It’s a difficult question to answer as I don’t know technically what is going wrong. I do agree that we haven’t taken enough catches but we are working hard. To be honest, we put in a lot of hard work in our fielding, especially we know catching is very important. All players standing in the slips are taking 50 to 100 catches. So we are trying to improve ourselves and eventually results will come,” he added further.

On Rahane’s fielding position

Many pundits believed that the solution to the slip catching could have been solved by putting in Ajinkya Rahane at the position. But Cheteshwar Pujara noted that it would be unfair to tinker the usual position of Rahane. Rahane fields in the gully region and is a top notch player there. He further added that the team management is holding discussions to fit in certain players in the certain regions on the field in the upcoming assignments.

“Ajinkya has been fielding at gully for quite a long time. We don’t want to disturb him from there. And the way he is fielding when the spinners are bowling, he is anyway in the slip cordon. He is set there so we can’t keep on changing fielders. When he’s at gully, he knows the angles and he has an idea of where to stay, when he starts fielding at gully,” mentioned Pujara.

“We are having a chat about it and we will assign a few players throughout the away series. We will prepare a few players who will be standing at the slips. We will discuss when we reach South Africa but we are already talking about that,” he added further.