The win may have glossed over the flaws but the Indians, for all their class and flair, are fast becoming an embarrassment in the field as was evident.
BRISTOL: The win may have glossed over the flaws but the Indians, for all their class and flair, are fast becoming an embarrassment in the field as was evident during the second one-day cricket match against England.
Rahul Dravid may not like it but among the top five teams in the ICC One-day rankings, India may well be the worst fielding side.
Having put up a mammoth 329 for seven wickets in the match, the Indians quickly slipped to their disastrous best when it came to fielding and the match almost slipped through their butter-fingers.
It was simply unbelievable to see Munaf Patel lazily saunter towards the ball at wide third man, as if he was out for a walk in the park, and tried to stop the ball with his foot only to gift a boundary to Matt Prior in the very first over bowled by Ajit Agarkar. And worse was still to follow.
Prior was then dropped at first slip by Sourav Ganguly on eight off Agarkar again in the third over, although to be fair to Ganguly it must be said that he may have been distracted by the fact that wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni feigned to go for the catch.
Dhoni then made a mess of a regulation catch off Kevin Pietersen in Ganguly's first over and in the same over, Ganguly himself was being more than generous when he refused to accept a nice return catch from the same batsman.
Similarly, Ian Bell, England's top scorer with 64, should have been back in the hut just for one but shockingly dropped at third man by Ramesh Powar, he went on to slam a fifty.
By the time they were through with their first 15 overs, the Indians had dropped four catches and conceded a couple of more boundaries due to their lethargic fielding.
And fielding was not the only woe for Team India. The Indians bowled no less than 15 wides and six no balls which is a fair reflection of the bowlers' spectacular failure to be disciplined. It only means that bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad now needs to work overtime.
Ditto with India's fielding coach Robin Singh, who ought to be tearing his hairs in sheer disgust.
As much can be said about Rahul Dravid who has acknowledged his team's major shortcoming saying, "Fielding isn't our strong area and we're not going to develop strong arms and athletic legs overnight. But we need to constantly work on it and make small improvements."
Those improvements, however, hasn't been evident in recent games.
For all his skills at the bowling crease, Powar looks more like a wrestler than a cricketer while Munaf seems hopelessly disinclined to work on his fielding.
Yuvraj Singh and young Piyush Chawla are the only livewires in the field while Sachin Tendulkar and Dravid may not be as brilliant but at least they can be considered safe. Unfortunately, most of other players have been found wanting in this key department.
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