The importance of fielding

It is some years now since Michael Bevan surprised an Australian team meeting with the observation that fielding is a measure of a team’s unity of purpose because it is an activity that is entirely carried out for the benefit of others, an observation that would have been quite a revelation to some of my former team mates.

Bevan, though, was right. The Australian side that was so utterly dominant for so long fielded beautifully because they absolute confidence in one another and in their own abilities. Some of the team bonding exercises, such as the excruciating poetry and the singing of ‘Under the Southern Cross’ seem rather naff to an outsider, but there is no doubt that this was a succession of teams with a powerful sense of destiny whose commitment to themselves, to the team and to the occasionally rather mawkish cult of the baggy green was absolute. This was shown by the way that they hunted as a pack - even the essentially unathletic Glenn McGrath turned himself, through hard work and commitment, into a decent out fielder, as his spectacular boundary catch in 2006/07 showed.

In the same way, the fielding of the two sides currently doing battle in Adelaide can be used as a barometer not simply of the respective sides’ abilities but also of their psychological well being. Australia’s fielding hasn’t been awful, for there has still been plenty of the athleticism that we associate with modern sides, but it has suffered in comparison not only  withthe sides that have gone before but also with their opponents. England fielded pretty well at Brisbane, Collingwood’s drop of Watson on the final afternoon aside, but they performed superbly on the first morning at Adelaide, hitting the stumps when they had to and holding onto all but the most difficult chance of the day. By contrast, Australia missed the run out opportunities when they came and took their total number of drops for the series to nine, a most un-Australian quantity. The bowlers are having a rough enough time of it bowling to in-form batsmen on a flat deck without watching chances go begging and routine stops flying to the boundary. While Australia are fielding like this then England know that they are on top – it will be a significant challenge for Ricky Ponting to turn it around.