The IPL fielding paradox: More athletic, less reliable

“From the perspective of what’s next, I’m too scared to even contemplate, because it’s going to be risky. Some of the timing that the guys have when they dive and they pull the ball back… If you had to do that five or six times a game, I think you'd probably dislocate the shoulder.

In pure athleticism, Rhodes had few like Colin Bland and Eknath Solkar before him, but many more after. Fielding is now a highly sophisticated, deeply nuanced arm of this sport, not defined by one-off dazzles anymore. It’s deep-set into the fabric of teams. And with T20s, the intensity and focus have only spiked.

But even in the blur of one-handed screamers, boundary relays and diving stops, there lies a mismatch. Because, while you have never been more likely to encounter an Instagram Reel of a brilliant fielding feat, the key metrics for fielding remain stagnant or even in decline. This seems surprising in an age where rising professionalism and sophistication causes most metrics in the sport to trend ever upwards.

A cursory look at the numbers reveals the following trends: catch success has largely remained the same despite the rapid evolution of fielding. Catch assists have made an appearance: pre-2019, they weren’t really a thing. Misfields per match have pretty much doubled in the last two years, run-outs have decreased in absolute number: with the percentage of boundary-clearing shots increasing, attempts for a quick single have gone down. For the last three seasons, catching efficiency continues to be below 80%.

Kolkata Knight Riders fielding coach Dishant Yagnik claims fielders are entering matches with “three-four minutes” of hastily practised fielding. Now working with the BCCI Centre of Excellence, he feels some players in the IPL still tend to treat it as a third skill, leaving themselves underprepared for four hours of high intensity where “everything is going in their minds”.

James Pamment, Mumbai Indians fielding coach from 2018 to 2024, is of the opinion that the basics aren’t as thorough as they should be. “The measures are way below what they were 7-8 years ago, in terms of the basics of the game,” he tells Cricbuzz.

“I just don't think the players are practising the types of repetitive chances that come during the game,” he says. “Many of these guys don't spend a lot of time training in the field during IPL. A lot of it is just their bat-ball work.

In Pamment’s eyes, it’s not just a volume mismatch. He hasn’t been part of the IPL for two seasons but watched “every ball” this year. “There is far more social media content going on around the teams. Sometimes, a lot of the work going on is more for social media content than it is for the good of the team and individuals,” he says.

The Knight Riders missed out on the playoffs this season, but they were arguably the best fielding unit of the tournament, dropping the least catches (13 in 13 games). Under Yagnik, even the most reluctant fielders would show up to train.

“There are 25 players in a squad: in a match, each can change his fielding position a minimum of three times,” Yagnik explained to Cricbuzz after the IPL. “Inside the 30-yard circle in the Powerplay, square or straight in the middle overs, and it could depend on lefty-righty combinations at the death.”

He takes the example of Varun Chakaravarthy. “There are three main positions for him, and one if he lands up in a hotspot. For third man, I have prepared him for slip-catching, because if a batter slices a wide yorker, the ball travels very fast.”

The last part is essentially what pre-match preparation centers around: duplicating match conditions as closely as possible. A player doesn’t merely anticipate a catch. Each position is defined by its unique angle and trajectory - down to the exact incline on the chest - and players are hardwired to reduce variables during a match.

Consequently, time-allocation and identification of your strong fielders and giving them role clarity becomes high priority. Blessed with an assembly of naturally gifted fielders, Pamment would call Kieron Pollard and the Pandya brothers his “fielding lieutenants”. The three would take control of the field, easing the load on captain Rohit Sharma, who was himself, as Pamment states, a human shield at extra cover. “Very agile, he would get close and take catches, and dive left and right.”

Among current Indian fielders, Rinku Singh is considered one of the finest. What he lacks in extra height, he compensates with sharper reflexes and a naturally athletic build, the low centre of gravity adding to his speed and fluidity. He is the only player for whom Yagnik has marked out four distinct positions.

Rinku is hardly ever stationed inside the circle in the Powerplay, usually prowling the square boundary on either side. “He’s a fast mover who can save two runs,” Yagnik says. “If the ball is mistimed and lands ahead, he can cover that area. In the Powerplay, you don’t try to hit over a fielder who is already in the deep. You try to clear the ball in the gaps that exist.”

His fielding ubiquity was best on show during KKR’s tied game against LSG, where he took four catches in four different outfield positions: long off, deep backward square leg, deep midwicket and long on. He added another one in the Super Over, crucially collecting a parry from Rovman Powell at long off.

To consistently cover large patches of the field, Rinku’s endurance levels need to be unfailing. For the same reason, he never gets to begin a fielding session feeling fresh. “I always use him when he is completely drained out,” says Yagnik, positioning him on the square boundary for a fielding session with a brand-new ball after a tiring batting stint. At the square boundary, the trajectory for Rinku is incline to decline, up to down, not decline to incline.

At every step, match conditions are replicated. For the death overs, fielders are given sky-high catches that they run in and take. If it’s a lefty, and fielders are in the circle, backward running catches are given with the older ball, preferably wet on one side.

“There’s obviously different tiers of players,” Pamment says. “The international players come three-four days ahead of the tournament and integrate really quick. You know the body of work they’ve done, very similar to Indian national players as well. The challenge is around the bulk of the squad being uncapped or very young players.”

Still, Pamment believes that cricketers of today have become far superior athletes in the last decade, which has pushed up the ceiling for those who count as a great fielder.

“The nature of the athletes has increased incredibly,” he says. “Due to sports science and athletic development, athletes who are playing IPL now are far superior to perhaps 10 years ago. Are they better cricketers? That's something you can argue, but they're definitely more dynamic with their movements.

“They understand diving and sliding certainly a lot more than the groups I first started working with in 2017 back in Mumbai. The uncapped Indian players were very reluctant to dive and slide because they just hadn't experienced that as they'd come through their domestic state or age-group teams. Whereas now I see some very dynamic, athletic, young, uncapped Indian players coming into these sets and they embrace things that will take their fielding standards to another level.”

But even top fielding units have their own weak spots. Training the supposedly weaker fielders and keeping them to the level of the rest can be a tough ask in a two-month window. They could be slow-movers, or not naturally athletic. “You can't always make them a brilliant fielder or a fast mover within the tournament,” Yagnik says. “But you can make them a safe pair of hands”.

The idea is to improve close-hand absorption from a height using a heavier ball. Even in a two-month swap, regular use of a heavier ball improves the response to the impact, increasing the confidence of the so-called weaker fielders. “You can work on their receivability, the middling of the palm, the force absorption: which is based on the TRAM (Time, Range, Area, Mass) principle.”

He also makes them practise with one hand, which gives more confidence when attempting two-handed catches. But the overarching philosophy is to make the body a better receptor. “When the opportunity comes, you don't panic and shrink your body. You stay calm: that’s when your levers will work properly.”

Pamment recalls how Suryakumar Yadav, who had moved back from KKR to MI, pushed himself out of that weaker category. “Very talented, very gifted cricket player, but not a great athlete,” Pamment says. “After 2019, he came to me and said, ‘You're going to see a new Suryakumar Yadav in 2020. He realised: to go to the next level, he needed to become fitter and more dynamic for longer. He needed to make some adjustments around his diet and his athletic development. And he did that fantastically well.

“He just took his game to a different level, not only his batting, but his fielding as well through 2020 and 2021. And then on to obviously leading India.”

Yet, in a competition as fierce as the IPL, physical preparation alone doesn’t cut it. There are layers of pressure and context in each play, which can make even the best fumble.

To counter it, Yagnik tries to add pressure to his fielding sessions, and not make it merely a token exercise. “Imagine I am giving someone catches (during practice). There’s no pressure, right? Now, imagine I said: 6 x 8s are?’ And he can’t see the ball until he answers. His mind is engaged in calculation, and the ball is already in the air. So, he will catch with 30 or 40 percent of his judgement ability.”

“Imagine Umran Malik has conceded 30 runs in one over. He’s standing at deep-fine leg. He will not think about random things like ‘what’s for lunch’. He will be thinking about the runs conceded, or how he’ll bowl the next over. Suddenly, a catch comes his way, and his judgement is down, occupied by other thoughts. But if you’ve already practised in that manner for two months, you’re used to the added pressure.”

They might seem like routine, even bizarre questions: ‘What did you eat two nights ago?’ or ‘What’s the capital of Belgium?’ But Yagnik believes the external pressure makes it fun. It also shakes up a player’s approach towards fielding, which the coach says is usually very casual in franchise cricket.

He gives the example of a dropped catch by a Rajasthan Royals outfielder in Qualifier 2, which handed Gujarat Titans opener Sai Sudharsan a crucial reprieve. Yagnik put it down to just not having had enough preparation for a pressure situation.

“You must hit that much airtime in practice. If it’s going to be 37-38 metres, you must try and hit 12-15 shots to that height as a fielding coach. And then add the pressure of calculation.”

To gamify fielding further, he maintains a leaderboard across the IPL, which he places outside dressing rooms and the playing area, constantly reminding players how they have fared. It fires up a healthy, internal competition within the setup.

The 2026 IPL was played across 13 different venues, with logistical considerations extending it to three playoff venues this time, not two. Each stadium comes with its own set of challenges, which can take years to get accustomed to.

“Every venue has small things (to note),” Yagnik says, taking the example of Dharamsala, where the ball flies off the bat. “At that high altitude, the ball dips very fast in the last 10 metres due to gravity since it’s travelling through thin air”.

Yagnik says merely passing on this theory to the players isn’t enough. Until it’s practised, it’s impossible to adjust. He uses both a brand-new ball and a softer, older ball to train in the last two days, because both have different impacts. “A rough ball takes time to rotate through the air, but a brand-new ball is glossy, it cuts through thin air faster. There’s a higher chance of swirling.”

Ahmedabad, the venue for the final, has a diamond-necklace shaped light, akin to the Ring of Fire in Dubai. “If the ball dips from a particular trajectory, you can’t sight it,” Yagnik says. “But if the ball goes through the middle of the light, then there's a fraction where it becomes a black spot. You either stay tall or crouch to read the trajectory better.”

The peculiarities can become very granular. “In Hyderabad, if you’re at short third-man, there’s a specific light towards long-on that’s inclined towards the ground. If someone hits an upper cut off a wide yorker or bouncer, you need to stand sideways and watch the ball from a side angle.”

It has equally come down to the players themselves to keep raising the bar. Rhodes, who was at the helm for MI before Pamment, recalls how Pollard, with his parried boundary catches, “showed us what’s possible”.

But even as it grows at a fast rate, fielding probably needs to circle back to its basics. They say fashion repeats in 20-year cycles. It’s relevant to the sexy part of cricket too.

Pamment recalls how, a decade-and-a-half ago, he had to revisit his coaching methods after a data audit made them realise that some of their training wasn’t relevant.

“Probably 15 years ago, I was part of a group with New Zealand Cricket, and we really dug deep into the types of chances that were coming during the games. And then we looked at the bulk work that we were doing in training, and it just was misrepresented. I think we were practising something like 18 percent of 80 percent chances that came in the game.”

“Don't just be doing fancy drills and entertainment drills for content. And for the sake of it, trying to almost entertain the players.

In the end, the gap on the two ends of this dichotomy needs to shrink. It may be sexy to pull off a stunner in the deep, but with how fast the game is changing, dropping a sitter has rarely been less attractive.

This is part of the Cricbuzz series - IPL Off-Season - where we will bring you stories from the T20 tournament all through the year. For more stories from the series, click here.

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