Indian National Cricket Team Fielding Coach T Dilip has provided important updates on India’s competitive fielding exercise ahead of the start of the two-match Test series against the Bangladesh National Cricket Team.
India and Bangladesh are scheduled to play the first Test match at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai from September 19-23 and the players are leaving no stone unturned in preparation for the start of the big Test season.
The Rohit Sharma-led team has already had a few practice sessions and all the players were seen putting in the effort in the hot and humid conditions of Chennai.
Meanwhile, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shared a video on its official X account where T Dilip revealed the details of India’s fielding session. T Dilip stated that Team India was divided into two halves during the catch-and-match exercise and the Virat Kohli-led team emerged as the winner.
“The idea of today’s session was to bring everyone together for a team drill. We have two segments – the first was the competition drill. Keeping in mind the humidity in Chennai, we made sure that the volume was less, but the intensity was controlled. So, we divided it into two groups and had a small competition between the catchers. The team that made the least mistakes was the winner. Today, Virat’s team won,” Dilip said.
Overall I would say it was a fantastic session – T Dilip
Speaking further in the video, T Dilip claimed that the bowlers and the all-rounder were involved in intense catching in the outfield and infield along with ground attacks while the batsmen were practising slip catching. He explained:
“And then we split into two groups, the pitchers and all-rounders were split into two stations where they took care of the outfield and infield catching along with the ground attack fielding. And the second group which is the batsmen group which had slip cordon, standard slip cordon for catching and also the short leg silly point with some reflexes, they took care of that.”
He concluded by saying that the players had a fantastic session in the hot conditions and maintained high intensity throughout the drills. T Dilip said:
“Overall I would say it was a fantastic session considering the conditions, especially with the blazing sun, and I got used to it. But a great feature of this team was that regardless of the conditions and weather, in all three seasons the intensity was top notch.”
Intensity 🔛 point 😎🏃♂️
Fielding coach T Dilip sums up #TeamIndia’s competitive fielding drill 👌👌 – By @RajalArora #INDvBAN | @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/eKZEzDhj9A
— BCCI (@BCCI) September 16, 2024
Notably, T. Dilip was the only member of the Rahul Dravid-led coaching team to be retained as the fielding coach during the transition to Gautam Gambhir’s tenure as head coach. His work has been widely credited for improving India’s fielding standards and introducing the fielding medal ceremony, which keeps the players motivated.
Meanwhile, India will play Test cricket for the first time since the series against England earlier this year, while Bangladesh will enter the series following a historic Test series win over the Shan Masood-led side in Pakistan.
