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Have you ever said or thought any of these things as a coach?
"Fielding is a non-negotiable"
"Catches win matches"
"Fielding is the only time that we are working together as a team, so it's vital that we are good at it!'
I agree, but I also ask: How well does your coaching fielders and keepers reflect those statements?
How much are the players developing their basic stop, catch and throw skills so that your team fielding drills increase in quality?
After all, the better these drills are performed the better our chances of wickets in matches.
Use culture to find the time for skill work
You may ask how you find the time for skills when you have a squad of players. You can't split yourself into 12. However you can develop a self organised culture that drives performance gain.
I get the players at school to take pride in self-reliance. I want them to have the ability to feed as well as perform drills. So they learn:
- Skyer hitting for high (height and accuracy) and flat catches
- Tennis racquet hitting into flat catching
- Throwing onto Katchet boards
- Catching with a baseball mitt
- Underarm feeds into catching
- Run off catches to a slip fielder (with both the Katchet board and cricket bat)
The final skill also helps to develop the players skill to be able to control the run down to 3rd man against faster bowlers in 1 day cricket.
When players know the drills, and can perform them without you, you will be surprised how quickly the culture shifts and players go off and practice on their own during quiet times.
"Open Cupboard Wednesday"
Every few Wednesdays, I allow the players to search in the store cupboard and use their innovative thinking and the equipment that we have collated over the years to come up with new fielding drills.
My better fielding drills came from these sessions. I owe Jos Buttler and his 2003 Somerset Academy Squad a lot when it comes to my fielding drill repertoire.
Use video fielding and keeping drills on rainy days
Build up a catalogue of footage of fielding so that when it rains you can put them up on a TV screen and get the players to review their technique, their performance and get them to pick out areas of individual and collective technical development. Use the time that's created by rain by planning ahead.
Rain is inevitable, it can be our friend as well as our foe.
Can you use any of these strategies to support your fielding philosophy?
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We all know the benefits of 
Cheteshwar Pujara is a throwback, but he proves beyond doubt that cricket is about a relentless thrust towards doing the basics at a world-class level.
