Steve Smith and Moises Henriques took diving blinders to dismiss Shreyas Iyer and Virat Kohli in 2nd ODI and potentially turned the game on its head
A good ball and a good individual batting performance can prove to be the undoing of the batsmen and the bowlers respectively, thus the third department - Fielding, still remains one of the many controllables in the game of cricket.
Fielding throws another word into the mix, i.e., attitude. A team's attitude on the field reflects in the team's conduct and more often than not it defines the team and the results as well.
Indian team's start to the Australian tour has been an indifferent one, losing the first two One-day internationals (ODIs) quite comfortably. While, the men in green and gold have pounced on the men in blue and have performed like a top-side in both the games.
Apart from inconsistency in bowling good lengths and lines and problems playing the short delivery with the bat, the clear difference in the two games between the sides has been the fielding.
While both the teams have dropped catches, team India has looked like a pale shadow of the fielding side, they have been in the last few years.
Fielding - The Difference
The dimensions of the grounds and the angles have caused a big problem for the men in blue. In the first game, the two dropped catches took place because both the fielders - Shikhar Dhawan and Hardik Pandya took a few steps too many inside and then misjudged the ball in the air, then had too backpeddle but were too late.
Similar episode followed in the second game as well, where Ravindra Jadeja fielding at long-off boundary had to come in to take Marnus Labuschagne's catch, he came in time judged it perfectly but eventually spilled it.
However, as the old saying of 'Catches win Matches' goes, it rang true for the Aussies on Sunday and these were not normal catches, by any stretch of imagination.
Blinders by Smith and Henriques
Skipper Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer managed to stitch a 93-run partnership and were looking to challenge the Australia's mountain of 390.
Australia's 6th bowler Moises Henriques came in to bowl his 3rd over and bowled a slower bounder, which Iyer hit in the air on the leg side, but a flying Steve Smith came in between.
Smith, who was standing inside the circle, anticipated it beautifully and attempted a full-length dive towards his right and pouched it very comfortably.
If this wasn't enough, Australia broke another partnership with a similar effort, this time from Henriques himself.
Kohli was batting at 89 and had put together 72 runs with KL Rahul. Australian skipper Aaron Finch brought back his main bowler to get a breakthrough and he just provided that, with more than a little help from his fielder.
Hazlewood banged a short delivery, which Kohli slammed it towards the leg-side, albeit in air, Henriques standing in a similar position, but a little closer, dived towards his left and held on to an absolute ripper, bidding goodbye to Kohli and India's hopes.
'Defining Moments of the Game': Kohli
Aknowledging the ineffectiveness of his bowlers, Kohli was also of view that those two catches were the defining moments in the game as according to him had those partnerships lasted a little longer, the game could have been different. He commended the Aussies saying that the lines they bowled let them create chances and they held on to them.
These two catches in the end summed up the difference between the two sides till now in the series, in a nutshell. The Indian bowlers have looked out of sorts in front of Australia's batting line-up and haven't bowled with any zip and accuracy to even create chances like those, let alone holding them.
The two sides meet for the third and the final ODI on Wednesday, December 2, at Manuka Oval in Canberra.
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