New Zealand vs India 2020: Coach R Sridhar unhappy with current fielding standards; wants to emulate CWC 2019 standards

Indian fielding coach R Sridhar expressed his disappointment at the current standards of fielding in the ongoing tour of New Zealand, pointing out Kuldeep Yadav's dropped catch of centurion Ross Taylor that could have changed the course of the match.

Speaking to PTI, Sridhar sounded confident of a good showing in the field from the second ODI, in what is a must-win match for the tourists.

"Overthrows, I mean, you are talking about" Manish (Pandey) -- he took a chance. He had to do it, and we needed a wicket at that time."

"You can bargain four runs for a wicket and it was the best player who was there at that time. These things happen, you can’t look too deep into that...That catch should have been taken. Probably it was after his first over, maybe he was thinking about his previous over, could be anything. It could not be a technical aspect at all."

Sridhar explained how each player was the captain of his own game and should give attention to every aspect of fielding to improve with each passing match. Plans should be set according to the strengths and weaknesses of the batsman and the fielding should complement the bowling to make the process more efficient.

"We keep reminding the players about attention to basic detail...In a T20 game, each fielder has to be his own captain. He need not wait for the captain to move him or the bowler to move him in a certain direction or to a certain position... We try and tell them to think ahead of the game, you as a fielder captain yourself, see which way the breeze is, which way the batsman’s tendencies to hit are, what’s the bowler’s plan and position accordingly.”

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He stated that the Indian fielding wasn't close to the standards they set in the CWC 2019 in England and Wales, and the West Indies series later that year was the actual time when it started going wrong for the current team.

"The West Indies series at home was somewhere we really dropped. We were average, to say the least. But definitely we have not lived to the standards as we did in the world Cup or even in the build-up to the World Cup in the last couple years."

However, Sridhar also explained that getting better was the only option as giving excuses wouldn't help the team's cause whatsoever.

“It is a tight schedule but it is not a complaint and it is not an excuse at all. We need to be better.”