Fielding a strong team

As we get closer to the first Ashes Test which starts at Trent Bridge next week, excitement is building around the country. In England, it is the Ashes that without doubt whets the appetite of the cricketing public and more importantly perhaps, the general public, and once again the spotlight will be firmly on the England team for the next couple of months.

Ashes series can be defined by many great individual performances, and thinking back to that great series in 2005, many standout as being crucial to the success of the team. Flintoff at Edgbaston, Vaughan at Old Trafford, Pietersen at the Oval all spring to mind as brilliant batting displays in wholly different contexts that played crucial roles in influencing the series.

Andrew Strauss take a wonder catch (c) Patrick Eagar

For me though, there are two moments that always stick in my mind from that series as pieces of individual brilliance that had a huge influence on the series, and both came at Trent Bridge. Firstly, there was Andrew Strauss’s spectacular one handed catch at third slip to dismiss Adam Gilchrist off the bowling of Andrew Flintoff at the 4^th Test at Trent Bridge. Then came the controversial but brilliant run out of Ricky Ponting by substitute fielder Gary Pratt.



Gary Pratt will be remembered as the man who ran out Ponting



Both these pieces of brilliance not only took crucial wickets in their own right, but they galvanised the team into thinking that nothing could stop them. That is why fielding is such an important element of our game, and one that we always ensure we practice thoroughly.

On Sunday, we were lucky enough to witness our own pieces of fielding brilliance to change the direction of the game. Firstly, Bharat Popli came up with a brilliant run out at a crucial stage to remove their dangerous opening  batsman who had just reached fifty. Then later in the innings, Sam Johnson took a brilliant catch running backwards over his shoulder, to remove their last real batting threat.

These things don’t just happen by chance. We work hard on our fielding both during the week at training, and in our preparation before the start of the game, to ensure that we give ourselves the best chance of creating moments of brilliance. I have always believed that fielding is actually the easiest part of your game to improve but mentally one of the toughest as you have to be willing to put the time into something that perhaps is not as much fun as bowling or batting. We are lucky at Kimberley to have a group of young players (and Jon Terry) who love fielding and take real pride in the standards they set. We know we can’t afford to rest on our laurels as we need to use every advantage we can get. Lets hope we see some more moments of brilliance in the field from Kimberley and England over the coming weeks.