Indian ‘Butterfingers’ League – 2009!
In one of my first few comments on this forum I had mentioned that one of the things that IPL T20 would add to the game was great fielding. Sadly though more than half way through the tournament I only have images of missed catches lingering and not any stunners plucked from thin air. Interestingly the malice seems to be spreading across all teams and even world class fielders seem to have caught the virus. The ‘drops’ could have been attributed to the poor domestic (that would be in comparison with the other domestic leagues) fielding standards which has thrown up the likes of Munaf Patel, Ashish Nehra etc. Through the tournament we have now seen the likes of Symonds, Duminy, AB de Villiers, Rohit Sharma etc. spill catches they thought they would have taken for practice. We do not often get to see wicket keepers drop the skiers with their gloves on but we have in this tournament seen the likes of Dinesh Karthik, Mahesh Rawat, Dhoni drop them. There surely has to be a trend or a reason for having so many catches dropped through the tournament. I could only speculate and come up with my thoughts on this –
Dew factor and windy conditions
All through the tournament we have seen the dew factor have a significant impact on sides bowling second. The swirling winds of the Rainbow nation have for sure made a few players (most of them seasoned professionals at that!) look like absolute novices when attempting to hold onto the skiers.
‘Sighting’ issues
Some experts have hinted that the lights could be an issue…especially the twilight time seems to have resulted in more than a couple of spilled chances. The tendency of the batsmen in this format of the game is also to go hard at the ball which a lot of times results in flat hard hits and against the multi hued background it would be quite a task getting a sighter.
Concentration
Or rather the lack of it…Jonty Rhodes in a recent interview said that as a fielder you need to keep expecting every ball to come to you. There are distractions galore at the venues – the noisy crowds, drums and the music and last but not the least the cheerleaders 
With the fast paced nature of the game it is easy for individuals to get ahead of themselves and plan for the next course of action and suddenly you are a touch slow to react and end up missing a catch.
Hopefully we shall not see a dropped catch at a crucial juncture decide any of the matches in the knockout stages of the tournament. Fingers crossed or should I be saying ‘butterfingers’ crossed!
May 14th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Yeah..it has been like that!
I remember, in SA, when India toured them 1st after the ban lifted 1991 or so - Azhar, one of the safest pair of hands, dropping a couple of high catches under lights and he looked to have completely misjudged them.
I agree on wind and lights factor in terms of skiers. However, the ones dropped by AB de Villiers and Rohit Sharma were something weird. Rohit would have felt he has already taken it before taking and in case of ABD, sharp chance, but was completely misjudged, by a foot or a couple of feet which is strange for ABD’s standards.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:34 am
I remember….somebody was saying that, the grounds are used for Playing Rugby…so they keep Big Layer of Grass in outfield..may be that is the reason for misfielding due to bad bounce
But dropping the catches is not at all justified…may be lights.
What if ICC makes standards for the Ground Conditions (I know there are lots of things involved in this) or may be just the Lights arrangement for Day-Night games.