Date:08/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/08/stories/2006090807451800.htm

Sport

Players use camp to fine-tune basics

Principal Correspondent

NO MORE BUTTERFINGERS: V.R.V. Singh and company finally seem to have reconciled to the fact that `catches win matches' is no hollow mantra. — PHOTO: K. BHAGYA PRAKASH

BANGALORE: Team India's accent on raising its fielding standards was reiterated by skipper Rahul Dravid in the concluding day's press conference of the cricket-skills camp here at the National Cricket Academy.

"In all our discussions, fielding was the one area that the players wanted to improve. They were happy with the fielding in our home series against Sri Lanka and England but were unhappy with our showing in the West Indies. All the three groups that trained here did a lot of fielding drills and hopefully we'll get to see the results soon," he said.

"The cancelled series in Sri Lanka gave us some time off and we saw it as an opportunity to give the boys some training in areas that warranted improvement. The support staff did a fantastic job. Greg Chappell, Ian Frazer and Gregory King have really worked hard," he said.

Dravid emphasised that practising with bowling machines and wielding a stump as a bat were only measures aimed at fine-tuning the basics.

Innovative methods

"These innovative methods help us stay focussed on the basics. If you are a batsman, you talk about watching the ball closely. So, if you are going to hit a golf ball with a stump, you are going to watch it more closely. In some of the drills we did for fielding, ideas like staying low or keeping the body weight low or while playing the bowling machine, the emphasis on ensuring that you get fully forward or get fully back... I mean these are all different ways of improving the basics," he added.

According to the skipper, the focus should be on winning rather than getting obsessed with batting slots. "If you look at recent matches, Sachin and Sehwag have performed excellently as openers. Unfortunately when Sachin got injured, we had to make some changes. It is not important who bats where, what's more important is how we get the right results," he said.

Extra contribution

Dravid also reiterated the need for tail-enders to contribute with the bat. "We keep discussing how we need more contribution from the lower order and one of the things that we find is that it is not easy to always give the lower-order batsmen a lot of batting practice. When the bowlers come to bat at nets, there is no real quality bowling around. This camp gave an opportunity for the bowlers to get some good batting practice," he said.

On the DLF Cup and the practice matches in Chennai, he said: "Australia is the best team in the world and we have not done well against the West Indies of late and this tournament gives us a chance to correct that. When we go abroad, we usually get a couple of matches against good local teams but in Malaysia we didn't feel we would get those sort of matches. So we felt that a couple of games in Chennai will do the trick."

Dravid was self-effacing as usual as he replied to queries on his nominations to the ICC awards list. "It is nice. I guess in the end it is probably a reflection of the performances of the year. There are great players in that list and to be amongst them is a nice feeling," he said. However, he refused to be drawn into a debate over the omission of M.S. Dhoni from the list.

He also said that it was good that the team's innovative camps preceded the Australian team's boot camp. "I'm so glad that we did it before Australia. Otherwise, they would have said we are just copying them," he added.