A very long time ago, when I was captaining Lancashire under-15s, in a match against Yorkshire under-15s, I dropped the easiest catch you’ve ever seen. And what happened next stayed with me for the rest of my cricket career, including my time as a pro. And it completely changed the way I thought about fielding. Because fielding isn’t just about technique. It’s about confidence.

It’s about pressure. It’s about body language. And often it’s also about overcoming the fear of making a mistake. So in this episode, I’m joined by internationally renowned fielding coach, Paul Tweddle. And together we’re going to be exploring the psychology of fielding, how the culture around fielding has evolved in the modern game, and what players and coaches can do

to raise their standards in the field. But before we get started, if you’re a young cricketer preparing for the season ahead, we’re running an online workshop in a couple of weeks called Making Pre-season Count, a one-hour session designed to help players prepare properly for the season ahead. Places cost £25 and you can find more details at Cricket Mind Online. Okay.

Let’s get into it. My name’s Nathan Wood and welcome to the Cricket Mind podcast.

So, Briony is away this week, but I’m delighted to be joined by a fantastic guest, Paul Tweddle, who’s the fielding coach at Somerset County Cricket Club, as well as being the head coach of the 50-over side And alongside his county work, Paul has built a really strong reputation internationally as a fielding consultant, working on six overseas tours with England.

and England Lions and most recently with Scotland at the men’s T20 World Cup. So Paul welcome to the pod.

Thank you very much. Pleasure. Thanks for having me.

You’re in Spain at the moment where the squad’s doing some warm weather pre-season training. I hope it’s better weather than what we’re getting over here.

Yes, 100 % 100 % better, I’d say.

So Paul, I started the episode by mentioning a moment from when I was playing in a county age group match, which obviously was a very long time ago. And I was fielding at mid-off and I dropped an absolute dolly, the dolliest of all catches. And I remember looking over to the boundary and seeing the Lancashire coach at that time.

A real old school character with a fearsome temper. And he took off his flat cap, he screwed it up in his hand and he hurled it to the floor. And he then proceeded to kick his flat cap all the way around the boundary whilst kind of muttering and spluttering about my dropped catch. And after the game, he gave me a real dressing down.

in front of all the players. Now, at the time, I probably didn’t realise it, but looking back, this had quite a profound psychological effect on me. And from that point on, I became incredibly conscious about not making a mistake in the field. In fact, I’d go further than that. Instead of wanting the ball to come to me, I secretly hoped.

that it wouldn’t, I kind of willed it not to come. And of course the irony is that, you know, when you’re trying not to make a mistake, you often end up making a lot more and the ball seems to hunt you down. And I remember John Crawley, who was a fine batter for Lancashire and England, once saying to me that I look like a startled rabbit in the headlights

when a catch would come my way. And he was absolutely right because it almost felt like a shock when there was an opportunity to take a catch. So I’m really interested in your perspective as a fielding coach. Why does fielding sometimes become such a psychologically challenging part of the game for lots of players and

Do you still see that reaction, that almost shocked expression when the ball goes in the air in some of the players that you work with in the modern game?

It’s all very nuanced, isn’t it? suppose that you don’t really, each person’s experiences are all relatively unique to them. But I’d say that fielding ⁓ has more of a team feel to it at times in terms of your mistakes from dropping a catch or mis-fielding or letting the ball go for four. It suddenly feels a little bit more, I’ve let the team down because obviously

at the root of it, think, generally speaking, is confidence. Confidence in themselves or confidence ⁓ in their skill, whether that’s catching, whether that’s throwing, whether that’s picking up a ball. ⁓ Nothing is better for you mentally than having a really good ⁓ fundamental in your skill because it gives you the opportunity to build confidence over time because your fundamentals get better and better and you can rely on them more under pressure.

You are right in so much as, you know, if you’re a batter and you get out, you’re obviously trying to help the team, aren’t you? But it’s ultimately, it’s you who’s got out and you’ve not affected your partner at the other end. But if you drop a catch, then you’ve got to think about the bowler who’s, you know, toiled away. And that can add a layer of anxiety. When you’re working with players at professional level and international

level and you know someone’s had a stinker, someone’s dropped, don’t know, a couple of catches in a session. How do you try and help players rebuild their confidence in the moment after you know a couple of key mistakes?

think knowing the person helps enormously there from a coaching point of view and knowing what they’ll need from you because some people definitely won’t want you coming over to them because they already know that they’re under the pump. But some people will really appreciate knowing that you’re supporting them and that you’re prepared to work with them on whatever their skill is outside of the game, I guess. ⁓

Ultimately, at that time in the middle of the game, there is very little you can do other than to provide your support and the opportunity to reframe that experience for them to say that the best thing about fielding and that you’re going to get potentially another go The game is still alive. There’s still opportunities to go and get more wickets, get more chances, create some more chances.

And I think often the message is go and be more positive with what you’re trying to do as opposed to feeling you’ve made a mistake and then try to avoid failure as opposed to taking on the opportunity to go and do something great, go and do something outrageously impactful within the team.

You mentioned about the importance of having strong fundamentals. And then you’ve also alluded a bit on the psychological side of fielding. How much of being a great fielder is having, you know, those technical fundamentals and also being athletic and how much of it is having a focused mindset and a positive attitude.

So from my aspect of things, I think that the the two go hand in hand but I think from experience, the better the fielder generally speaking, they’ve both risen up at the same time. They’ve got that real hunger and desire to want to be a good fielder. They’ve ⁓ along with their fundamentals, but I’ve seen some fielders that are probably relatively limited in terms of their fundamentals, but

It’s their mindset, it’s their capability to go to different places mentally that puts them above other other fielders who athletically might be better off or physically more capable, have a higher skill set. But actually, they don’t have that same mindset or approach or attitude towards wanting to be a good fielder in the first place, which is kind of it’s probably over half the battle. Like you can’t

You can’t get away with having poor fundamentals just because you know, you want to be a good fielder. That doesn’t exist. But I think once you have those, it can really elevate your fielding past other people because you’ve just got a desire or hunger or a passion for it that comes across and you just you’re mentally much more tuned into the game.

Do you think it’s possible for someone with low athletic capability to be a great fielder?

⁓ I guess it depends what you define as being a great fielder because you could have unbelievably great ⁓ slip-fielders who, who athletically might not move in the same way, but they’re very, very good in their, in their box. ⁓ And you have guys that, you know, and girls that field in the ⁓ extra cover region close to the bat who ⁓ don’t cover the same amount of ground, but I’ve got unbelievable hands, ⁓ you know,

really good under the high ball, straight up. They dive very well left and right within a small space, but they’re very, very capable in that sense. And they’re very, very accurate with their throwing in terms of hitting the stumps. So ⁓ there is much the same as rugby in a sense, is that I think that the field has a place ready for every kind of

every fielder and I think that’s the kind of that’s the cool thing about it.

Would you say that anticipation is a skill? And if it is, can you develop anticipation in a fielder?

⁓ 100 % you can develop anticipation, 100%. I think it’s just about drawing attention to the right things. And a lot of the stuff that I do as a fielding coach would be about how can we draw attention to the right stuff at the right time, because it’s actually the ⁓ it’s the ability to watch the right thing that gives you anticipation. ⁓ So we would use things like coloured gloves in a white ball.

sorry, in a red ball context where they’re wearing whites. So we’d use red gloves to highlight the fact that they’re trying to see the difference between hands being drawn all the way back for a powerful strike versus hands that don’t move and they just dab at the ball because they’re playing tip and run. So it’s about ⁓ in the same way as ⁓ a pickpocket or ⁓ a magician senses your attention and moves it around.

We’re trying to put attention on something that’s ⁓ very clear so that they can pick up something that’s actually very small.

So when you watch a game now, what would be the small details that would tell you that someone is a really top fielder?

what they do just before and just after the balls hit the bat. ⁓ And then once the balls come to them, how relaxed their body looks when they are trying to perform something that’s quite hard. ⁓ I’d say that generally speaking that feedback that people generally see are batters got so much time or

a bowler just looks so flowing in their action that stands the same ⁓ in fielding in the sense that they could be sprinting at a ball flat out to pick up a ball on the move and throw. And it looks relatively slow in the sense that it’s flowing. It doesn’t have jerkiness to it. ⁓ It sinks really well. So I think those sort of things stand out ⁓ more so than someone that picks up a ball and throws it.

over 85 mile an hour, which would be considered, you know, elite level in terms of pace on the ball. But it might be that they ran round the back of the ball. The batters ran two. They should have been one. And then they just hurtled the ball. And that won’t that won’t make me identify them anymore as a as a top class fielder because they’ve missed kind of 75 % of the skill, which is getting to the line of the ball, reading it off the bat, anticipating where the ball is going to be attacking it on a line.

picking it up and throwing it.

There’s an idea that the crowd shouldn’t be able to tell who’s on top in a game just by looking at the body language of the fielding side. Do you subscribe to that? I mean, how important is body language for you as a coach, Paul?

think it’s very important until ⁓ sorry, it’s very important as long as you understand the severity of what that means to different people ⁓ and how it changes amongst others. I think you still have to be authentic because otherwise it’s a very long day to try and be someone you’re not. ⁓ But I think you’ve given yourself the best chance with your body language. If even if it’s

just to tell yourself that you need to be positive, you need to be engaged in the game, you need to forget the previous over that you bowled that went for 20 and now give to the team or think about yourself as a fielder and your body language is part of that that’s going to help that.

So for you, what would be the signs that tell you a fielding side is starting to lose its energy or confidence.

⁓ Generally speaking, speed on the ball, and that means how quickly the ball gets from A to B to C. So that’d be ball off the bat, ball into hand, ball to the keeper, ball back to the other fielders and then back to the bowler. ⁓ The speed in which people are changing positions if they need to. And ⁓ we talk about like the crowding effect of the inner ring. ⁓

If you’re on top, generally speaking, you’ll see the ball be hit and you’ll it’ll close in. And if you’re not, and generally speaking, this is when boundaries are hit everyone turns around and walks the opposite way very quickly to get back to where they started. They don’t want they don’t want to linger in anymore. They want to kind of effectively evacuate themselves from the position and go back to square one to try and restart. Whereas when you’re on top, you want to you want to kind of upsell that.

position of dominance. So you linger in it, you keep it for longer. So I think those are sort of small signs. I mean, the classic is your your head down, your hands in pockets. But I think if you’re if you’re still doing your job and it doesn’t affect the way you do your job, that shouldn’t be something that’s kind of frowned upon people’s natural body posture. And things might look different from person to person. It’s kind of

it’s more important as to what happens then around them and how they then do their job. Is it starting to affect the way that they then anticipate or stay in the game And I think the key as a coach is to understand that there’s a fluctuation of that through the day, through the innings. And what you’re trying to avoid is this yo-yo effect. You’re trying to obviously keep people on a path that’s like…

OK, if we’re getting rattled around for a few boundaries, like it’s not the end of the world. And also if we’re flying through, we’re not getting too high. ⁓ Similar thing as you would try with kind of, guess, any athlete in the you’re trying to not stifle their emotion, but you’re trying to get them to understand what might happen if this is overdone somewhat.

So what about the role that noise plays in the field? So as a batter, you know, if you walk out and the fielding side a really loud and the really vocal at the start, I always thought it was a real giveaway actually that when you’re getting on top, you know, they start to go quiet and the louder they were at the start, the bigger the contrast is when they kind of stopped talking. So.

coupled with what you’re saying about the body language, I think you were talking about having a constant. From your perspective as a fielding coach and as a head coach actually, do you like your teams to be loud and vocal at the start of innings or do you prefer them to maintain that consistent energy rather than just being noisy for the sake of it?

This is a tricky one because I think at the professional level there’s a lot of other factors because you obviously playing with crowds a lot of the time and your need to be noisy and vocal a lot of the time is ⁓ It’s kind of irrelevant I mean, I’ve you know, just come back from working with Scotland and that game against Nepal at the Wankede it was They could have been saying anything or nothing and it would not have made a jot of difference

to what was being kind of going on because it was irrelevant. ⁓ So that’s where body language and kind of how you present yourself becomes more of a factor because noise has basically been kind of taken out. Whereas if you’re an under 15 county age group coach and you’re trying to ⁓ get people to understand the fluctuation of energy and kind of pressure, you want your teams to amplify pressure and tell the opposition and show them that you’re on top and that

you it doesn’t matter that they’ve hit a few boundaries. You can you’re coming back at them or whatever it is. ⁓ So I think it’s it’s a need to have the ability to be able to still ⁓ use it in the right way. And I think longer format noise is the I’ve always thought anyway, personally, the more intelligent the comment, the better, because actually, it’s the

It’s the thing that you say that’s quite intelligent that actually might make the difference to whether someone’s gonna as a batter is gonna be able to feel that pressure or feel that moment where they’ve just, you know, not quite got something technically right. Or, you know, the, you know, if you’re playing tennis and someone’s serving very well and you ask them, you know, oh, why are you serving so well? It’s the surefire way for them to overthink what they’re doing when they’re actually just in that flow state. You’re trying to get them out of that as quickly as possible. So a batter’s

playing brilliantly and someone says to you, jeez you’re hitting the ball well, why do you know have you changed your grip or something like that, as a as a fielding side that’s going to quite useful to you because it’s a useful bit of call it banter or sledging or whatever it is. Whereas noise, I think once you’ve established a norm, it just becomes background noise as opposed to something that actually you listen to because.

But again, in the professional game, it’s not spoken about as much because of the crowd impact. And ⁓ it’s more about body language. It’s more about how fast the ball is getting around. It’s about presence, that sort of thing. Because like I said, the noise thing just kind of goes out the window at times.

So what about then for those players who are, they might be playing some second team cricket, they might be a younger player playing in pathway games where there’s no crowd, maybe a club cricketer. Would those same principles apply? You know, you’re not looking for noise, you’re looking for the energy and the body language and the getting into position and keeping the position.

Yeah, I think it’s, it’s you need some noise. So you need to be able to support and you need to be able to, you know, if someone’s bowled well, you want to amplify that. ⁓ You so I think that’s the that’s the main thing really, from my point of view, from a club point of view or age group point of view is you need to be able to support players that are doing well. ⁓ But it’s much more about the energy that you bring. It’s more about what you say.

not how much you say. Yeah.

and who do you typically like to drive that energy? captain? the keeper? someone else? does it matter?

I think if I had my choice, it would be the person that is the most authentic version that does it. So if it’s someone that is in there that is naturally like that, you want them to amplify that as much as possible and use it to your advantage. Don’t be trying to force the person that is clearly not their bag to do it, to try and drive it. And I’d say it’s probably unlikely that you’re going to have.

11 or people in your team that are all very, introverted and very, very ⁓ quiet by nature. I’d say you’re going to have a couple in there that have the ability to be able to go outside of that. And if you do and you’re a quiet team, then you just embrace that and be be the quiet team that’s incredibly ⁓ buzzy around the ball and do a lot of other stuff that the noisy teams don’t do. So I think it’s it’s

It’s really good when it suits people. And if you’re trying to make people into something they’re not, it’s incredibly tiring and probably down the line it comes back to bite you because they’re all exhausted by the time they come to bat in the second innings where they need their mental energy to be able to go in and problem solve in the middle.

i guess it’s i think fielding is one of those things that is a real uh… mirror to the culture of a team would you would you you agree with that

Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard that spoken about so much and I think it’s it’s like the window to the culture of the club or window of the culture of the team. And ⁓ whilst I do agree with that, I think there’s some factors in that that it depends on what people ⁓ feel like it is that they are judging that team on. Is it because they is it because they run after the ball very fast or are they actually very good at their skill? Because

there’s a factor within that is if the team is catching their catches, you know, getting their run outs when they need to, but they’re not particularly loud. They’re not particularly fast with the ball. They’re a very, very efficient, high quality, high performing fielding side, but they probably won’t get the same adoration as the team that dives at every single thing on the boundary, but drops the odd catch and isn’t as accurate with their throwing. So. ⁓

I think noise and energy and speed is not always the ⁓ marker or the blueprint of high quality fielding. There’s a balance to be had.

We were talking about culture ⁓ before i remember playing a in a four-day county championship game and the context here was that the we had a new head coach dav whatmore who a few months ago won the world cup with Sril Lanka he was really big on fielding and he told me that i needed to improve my standards in the field so that so the next morning i arrived early

to the ground and i did some extra fielding practice with him before the the rest of the team turned up, I was only a young man, 21, 22 and i was ambitious and i knew he was right i knew i had to improve my fielding but later that morning just as we were about to walk on the field for the start of play i got tap on the shoulder from a senior player, an england player who warned me to

to be careful of not getting a reputation for being a teacher’s pet. And so I never again asked for any individual fielding practice. And I was always fascinated by that because at no point did anyone ever bat an eyelid about me or any other player doing individual work on their batting or their bowling. Now know that, know, attitudes towards…

Fielding have completely changed since then and the culture has changed in the professional game. do you think that players are now treating fielding as a craft that is as important as batting and bowling? Or is it still a skill that’s behind those in the pecking order? What would you say to that?

That’s a good question. ⁓ think I’d like to think we’re on our way to for it to be a skill on parity. ⁓ think there’s a distance still to cover is that is the honest truth. I think around every environment that I’ve being involved in, I think there’s talking to different clubs and different environments. I think there’s there’s probably some ground still to still to go in terms of the

not necessarily the importance placed on it, but actually what you do to try and help the development of fielding. think that the expectations are very high, but I think that what is different amongst different environments is what they do about the development of those expectations and how you’re actually getting people to reach them, which is the bit that probably over the years has changed fairly dramatically in the sense that it used to be more

we’ll go out and hit some catches and we’ll just hit them harder if you didn’t do it very well until you get good at it. ⁓ Or we’ll just stay out here until you take your 10 catches. ⁓ And it would be something that’s driven a little bit by fear and a little bit by ⁓ pressure or ⁓ kind of it is a negative context of most things around it. Whereas now, hopefully, it’s a, you know,

let’s go and do some really cool stuff where we can dive and and effects and really ⁓ challenging players that are going to they’re going to look upon you, you know, very favourably or very positively. So I think that’s probably the change. But I’d love to see I’d love to see a wider context shift towards actually let’s set those expectations of, you know, being clean with our catches clean with our throws But actually what

what does the development behind that look like so that those players can know that they’re supported through that. If they can’t do it, there’s someone there that’s going to go, actually, no, we can do this together and I’m going to help you through that journey to support that. And I think we’re a lot further down that road, but I think there’s probably some distance still to cover, honestly.

And what about further down the pathway? do you think the importance of fielding has filtered down into age group cricket and also club cricket? Do you think it’s coming down the chain or?

Yeah, definitely. Definitely

in the pathway. ⁓ Again, I can only speak from my own experiences, but I think the understanding of where you need to be at, almost like the curriculum of fielding is a lot more awareness around that now to say that, you know, you should be able to do this by then. You should be able to do this by then. ⁓ So I think that’s the the main thing is that.

It’s dripping down into those contexts I can’t speak for club cricket. I don’t know. ⁓ But I think the reality is that, yeah, there’s some there’s some really good stuff, really good stuff happening within pathway cricket that’s encouraging young fielders to go and explore the positive aspects as opposed to the ⁓ avoiding of failure, which I think is probably my main takeaway from if anyone’s kind of listening this with a coaching lens or a parental lens is ⁓

try and encourage those thought processes, those ⁓ drives to achieve really cool, fun, positive experiences as opposed to get good at it so that you don’t make mistakes. think that’s a, generally in cricket I think that’s probably a good way to live your life, but ⁓ just especially in fielding because it’s a harsh critic, it’s harsh enough, it doesn’t need extra put on it.

And you’re going to do it more than any other thing that you do in cricket aren’t you? You know you’re going to spend a lot of time you know in that field so you might as well you know enjoy it and be as good as you can. So we’ve talked about culture and the attitude towards fielding I’m curious actually to what it actually looks like in practice so at Somerset what percentage roughly of training time is

typically devoted to fielding compared to batting in bowling would you say?

⁓ At the moment, we’re in preseason, so the insight into that is that I’d like to see us doing something with every player, every time we practice. ⁓ And that’s probably something that’s relative to their central skill as a fielder. So ⁓ slip catches for the slippers, ⁓ ring work and

⁓ outfield stuff for guys that are not going to be in there and also developmental work towards white-ball cricket for those that are on a bit of a journey with their fielding. So we’re doing stuff that’s going to help us right now, stuff that’s going to help us in the future, hopefully, and some things with players that is more of a long-term project that we’re trying to help them to establish some athletic basics or whatever that is. ⁓

we’ll do something I would say every day and that goes to match days, that goes to practice days. ⁓ But one of my, I’d say one of my key kind of principles of that is that it doesn’t have to be for that long. ⁓ And it’s probably better if you have lots of small experiences of something, go away, let the brain do its work and then come back to it rather than trying to cram everything into an hour.

and then have four days where you don’t do anything and the brain loses it. So I’m not 100 % sure about that from skill acquisition point of view, but my sense tells me that doing something often with breaks that allow you to reset and for that learning to take place is probably quite important.

⁓ when you’re in your role as Head Coach you know and you’re overseeing all the different skills does that’s do you carry that philosophy into batting and bowling as well having you know shorter you’d much rather have shorter periods of time and then they’ve got more reflection points does that transfer into those skills

It does at the top level, I think because generally speaking, the guys, I don’t know, more than 50 % of the guys will be in a phase where they’re preparing to play as opposed to still developing vast chunks of their skill. So they need to operate at the level and intensity that’s going to be required. And actually, physically, they can’t sustain that for long, long, long periods of time and play at the same time. So

The intensity is high and the time frame is short and then we play. Whereas some of the other guys might be on a journey where their intensity is quite low, but the frequency is very high and the length of time, the duration is relatively high compared to the others. So I think from that point of view, that goes for bowling. The difference with bowling is

you’ve got to hit a certain number of overs to be ready to play and you need to be ready workloads wise. But also at the same time, you need to know that those overs are done at the right intensity because, you know, you get making sure you’re hitting 20 overs a week or whatever the target is. There’s that could be 20 overs of 60 percent bowling of 100 percent bowling. There’s so much to it. So the intensity, obviously, and by that, I speed and kind of physical

work that you’re doing needs to be monitored and that goes for fielding as well. And I think that’s the job of us or sort of certainly me is to try and manage the difference between someone that is maybe in the latter years of their playing who is very much predominantly preparing and their intensity needs to be high and very short periods of time versus someone that actually can do a lot of drill-based work that’s going to take a lot of time and take something out of them physically because

the load on them when they come to play is going to be less because the frequency they play out is less or ⁓ a young player who’s playing in academy has still got maybe some relatively big chunks of their skill that’s still left ⁓ unworked on. I think that’s probably the, yeah, that’s the way I would kind of look to manage it.

Just kind of specifically talking about fielding work that the pros do, that you work with, both at Somerset and internationally, how much time is spent on individual fielding work compared to team fielding practice or collective practice, would you say?

I think we do a lot more stuff individually than we do as a team. And we try to use, I’d say you end up using team stuff as a…

as a method of energy and galvanizing a culture. ⁓ And we’ll probably look at doing that tomorrow. As an example, we’ve had lot of very individualized days. We’re going to have a game coming up soon. We’ve got an opportunity to have a team-fielding session. We’ll do some unit-based work, which is slippers, inner ring, deep-fielders, ⁓ group diving or whatever, something like that. But there’ll be

large chunks of that which will be team races or it will be fun drills that really got nothing to do with fielding in the sense that it doesn’t really look like the game. So from a skill acq point of view and from a ⁓ learning point of view is probably not that relevant. But in terms of how people think and impact as a team and the energy it can bring and the fun and the kind of camaraderie of it is quite high. So when we have team stuff.

It’s generally that’s the intention from my point of view is to try and go after something that’s a little bit more like that as opposed to it’s also hard to actually do that work. And you’ve got 18 lads to actually think about something technically or mentally that they’re trying to process and stop the session for 18 just to talk to one. You’re better off trying to go after something that’s a bit more rhythm based, a bit more energy based, a bit more flowy ⁓ than it is to try and get down to nitty gritty work.

unless there’s something as a team that you need to really do, like something where this evolved around backing up or a new position that people are getting used to being in and you need to see the shift of people moving around. But that’s, again, might kind of where I’m working at that happens less because there’s a lot of a higher awareness of what the lads are doing.

If you were the head coach of a local amateur club team and bearing in mind that most clubs only train once a week, what proportion of that training time would you devote to fielding?

⁓ How many times a week do we practice?

No, I would say most club sides, you know, train once a week in the the season.

Okay, so I would do something if I had the chance, I would do something for.

Let’s go for 45 minutes once a week at practice where Let’s say 15 to 20 minutes of it is around building fundamental fundamentals, even at club level, at adult level or junior level doesn’t really matter where I’m looking at pick up, catch, throw. I’m designing a drill that everyone can do that’s exactly the same that.

I can coach within and around. the idea of coaching intention. So I’m setting up something that everyone does the same, whether you’re 12 or 30. But I can then input some coaching points and I can stand and watch as a coach and talk about the things that are relevant. And then I would devote the last 20 minutes to how quickly we can get a ball from A to B and not allow the skill to break down or.

I’m racing against this team, so I’m feeling a little bit of pressure. I have a little bit of a catch that’s under pressure. I have a throw that’s under pressure because generally speaking, you’re not going to make massive yards in development, in development of fundamentals once a week with a club not over a short term. Over a long term, you might But in a short space of time, you can definitely raise the level of people’s expectations about what’s achievable and certainly give them some exposure to pressure. Again, whether you

subscribe to it being a thing or not. It’s still something that’s relevant.

There’s an old view in cricket that not everyone can become a good batter or bowler but anyone can become a good fielder. Do you agree with that?

not really. think you’ve got you’ve got you’ve got again. I think the old adage of what a good fielder would have been and what it is now is it’s certainly a skill easier ⁓ to attain because the practice limitations are a lot less. So as a bowler, can you can only bowl a certain number of balls to acquire the skill as a batter. There’s only a certain amount of

dads, or mums or parents out there that can throw your balls until their arms fall off or whatever it’s like my shoulders sore, you know, whatever it is. And I can only have a certain but the chances and the opportunities to practice fielding are relatively endless in terms of what you can do. So your opportunity is higher, but it would be very remiss of me to not like applaud or attain the

chance that there are certain people that are just gifted with the ability to be able to see the ball slightly differently, athletically, to be able to manage their own body weight differently. ⁓ And no matter how hard you work at something, there will be, you know, there’s thresholds to what your development can get to. And I think you can become a very, very solid fielder. And I use the word solid as opposed to good.

because I think you can have potentially some limitations around how you move and stuff like that, which are physical, which take loads of time to unpick. But simple basic catching, throwing, picking up a ball at speed is relatively speaking to become solid is easier to attain than it is to become a solid first class batter because that is, you know, it’s a skill in itself that is, you know.

there’s a certain amount of luck that’s involved, there’s a certain amount of time to take. But I think, in some ways you can get to a certain level, but you need those other attributes to become what I would describe as a good fielder as opposed to someone that’s just solid.

Now that’s a really intelligent answer that. Are there any specific skills or attributes that are really difficult actually to develop in fielders that jump out?

⁓ I’d say probably fear of the ground is hard ⁓ because the fear of physical pain ⁓ is something that’s really hard to get over. I think we see that in batters with the short ball a lot. And that kind of if everyone’s kind of seen the back away movement with their young player who’s kind of a little bit ⁓ afraid of the, you know, the

ball being bowled faster and faster or change from softball to hardball. ⁓ That change is relatively hard to make it because ⁓ it requires quite a lot of contact to doing the thing that’s hard. You can have a certain amount of skill over your ⁓ ability to roll or dive or something like that. But if you’re fundamentally very, very fearful of what might happen if I hit the floor, that nervous

feeling takes a long time to build, a long time. ⁓ I reckon catching is something that with the volume and the right sort of practices, relatively linear in terms of how many balls you can field it will progressively get better. Whereas, you know, something like diving, there’s a there’s a big period of flatlining where you’re kind of not really making much progress, but you’re you’re hoping that they’re building a little bit of a

of a skill base to it. But I see that with like players that have come from rugby or a background where they’ve hit the floor loads and they come to cricket. You can see that sense of fearlessness when hitting the floor versus, you know, guys that or, you know, players that have come from different backgrounds who maybe haven’t had that. ⁓ And especially those that have had a lot of growth in a very short space of time.

because suddenly the ground seems so far away and the proximity to the ground is something that’s, you know, something that’s hard to argue with in terms. You don’t want to be far away from the ground if you want to be a good diver Generally speaking, you want to be quite close to it. So that’s quite that takes time. That takes a lot of time. ⁓ And then all the other things I think are relatively, you know, if you put a lot of good work in, you haven’t got a lot of barriers, but fear of pain is

is definitely like whether that’s just all hitting hand and developing strong hands when you catch is it is tough once you have to get past that pain barrier, I guess.

At the other end of the spectrum is me. had a terrible arm and no matter how much I got in the gym and about how much I tried to practice, I just didn’t really get much better. Can somebody, know, have you got examples of people who’ve had really weak arms, who’ve developed, you know, a strong one

Yeah, think you see that. ⁓ You see that occasionally, I think it’s there’s a definite genetical factor because the way that the way that the upper that I get into fancy the upper back has to like if your back is naturally put in a certain way, it’s very hard for your arm and shoulder to get access to positions that other people find very easy, just mobility wise. So like Ian, as an example, might have really, really flexible.

upper back and therefore external rotation of his shoulder, means that his arm becomes more and more like a catapult, the more it kind of dips back and past his arm. And that’s kind of your laxity to your joints is something that, you know, some people just don’t have. ⁓ So there is obviously, again, thresholds to it. But I think I think it’s always a challenge as a as a coach. I see those sort of questions as like a yeah.

I would back myself to get anyone to be able to throw the ball harder and better, just given a bit of time and a bit of space to be able to do it. I think the thing with throwing that’s interesting is what the background of the throw looks like. If you were put under pressure to find target at a very young age, you develop a very pushy type of pattern in your arm and it becomes it very hard for you to then throw the ball with power.

because if your first immediate focus was to try and hit a target and you were maybe negatively reinforcing the miss of that target, or you’re putting a lot of pressure on them hitting the target or, know, chastised if you missed, then your arm will develop a very linear, pushy, straight on shot putty style because that’s the best way to throw a ball straight, kind of like a dart.

like darts, throws, you extend from the elbow straight to the target. It’s the best way to go straight. Whereas actually when you want power, you want to be able to rotate through your back, through your arm, and you want to be able to produce force from the ground. And there’s a lot of rotation that happens, which sometimes means the ball could go any way, which way. So I’d much rather people who have, you can see the ones that have, know, where I used to do it with my dad, go down to the beach and you skim the stones. You develop that natural.

laxity of the shoulder, you put power into your throw, you’re not really worried about where the ball goes. And then you can learn to, you know, harness that later on down. But I think sometimes we can be a little bit too worried about where that ball’s going too early. And it probably puts too much constraints on people’s arms and they can end up having to unlearn that. that’s probably what’s next to diving is the hardest thing to do is to get a

23, 24 year old to unlearn a pattern that they’ve been using for the last 10 years, which has served them relatively well.

is fascinating what’s going through my mind there is that the parallel with fast bowlers and you know people saying just slow it down and actually probably the worst thing you can do with a youngster ⁓ Is mobility then a more important component than strength when it comes to

not more, but it’s the ability to be able to be strong through So the fastest throwers will be strong through the wider ranges. They have more access to more power through a wider range of motion, which means they can put more power through that joint and ultimately into the ball. If you’ve only got that much movement through a shoulder joint to put power through versus someone that can do that, that person’s going to have more access to power, potential power.

And there’s examples of people that are extremely highly mobile, but they move quite slowly through those joints. They don’t have that much strength, they have that much trust in their bodies. I think if you like Aroldis Chapman, I think there’s a YouTube, he’s a baseball thrower, he threw 105, I think, in the MLB, and he’s still throwing over 100 now and he’s nearly 40. He could touch his elbows behind his back. But he’s also six foot five and 220 pounds.

So he’s basically a human catapult is effectively what he’s doing. So the reason he throws at that speed is because you’ve got very long limbs moving over a large range of motion with a lot of power and strength and mass behind it. So that’s you’re trying to ⁓ with a young person, I’m trying to get them to appreciate the value of having a relaxed throwing style.

that doesn’t mean about that’s why I don’t really enjoy the term throwing mechanics because I feel like it kind of points to points as opposed to a flow. If you watch someone if you watch someone throw across a baseball diamond from shortstop, their arm is anything but mechanical. It’s fluid. It’s rhythmical. It’s you know, it whips all those terminology you’re trying to elicit within young players is to go if I was working with someone throwing I’d be like

Those are are the terms I’m giving them. I’m not giving them keep your elbow above X and Y and do this. I’m trying to give them tasks to achieve. If I want them to throw a bit higher, you get them to throw the ball into the floor and bounce it higher because your arm naturally would come up higher if you want someone to throw a slightly lower arm. So make the target very wide and very low so that they feel like they’re skimming stones. They used a catchet board to throw a ball off of. You’re trying to create

drills and environments for them to work on the bits of their throw without having to add in the technical information to try and overload their brains. You try and find the movement, sorry, find the technique through the movement skill as opposed to giving the technical advice.

I totally agree with that throwing mechanics line. It does conjure images of rigidness, doesn’t it? you know, I think all the best sports folk, you know, in any game, they play it the best when this flow isn’t, it’s not rigidness. There’s a flow to the movement. So yeah, I love that. I want you to put your head coach cap on now and just talk about…

⁓ selection and how fielding kind of now influences ⁓ your selection policies because historically there’s always been some players who were quite one-dimensional you know outstanding batters or bowlers who weren’t necessarily that great in the field i’m thinking of the likes of devon malcolm, phil tufnell, monty panesar – is there still a place for players like that in the modern

professional game.

⁓ Yes, but not many.

And is that is that in the longer format?

any

format, I think that the reality is that if you can crunch six Yorkers at the death, you’re worth a lot of money. You’re worth a lot of money. And it won’t matter whether all you can do is walk from 45 to 45. People are still paying a lot of money for you because your skill set is in extremely high need and is extremely valuable, monetary wise and also in terms of the game.

So you’ll take a hit on a fielder not being able to be as good as X if they meet some form of minimum requirement, which is generally speaking the ability to able to catch. Because I think within reason, the ball is not going to find that person that often, which is why I say you haven’t got many slots like that because you use only certain amount of places you can, within better words, hide fielders.

⁓ or they have less contact time or contact points. ⁓ But if they are touching the ball four times and each one of those is at 45 and the ball is rolled to them and then they bowl four overs, two for 24 in a 200 game, they’re worth every penny of that selection because they’ve influenced the game positively. So I think it’s all about ⁓

number of contacts versus how many people eventually you get to a stage if you have too many of those, you’ve now got too many gaps and too many contacts for people that are not of the standard that you need and require. And you’re going to end up losing out to teams because you’re dropping chances or you’re not getting to chances because your team is filled with people that are less mobile or haven’t got as good a hands. ⁓ And you end up losing on the flip side of that because

you you’re dropping chances and no matter how many Yorkers you bowl, this person’s still getting another go. So, ⁓ and I’m really, I don’t know, I’m really interested to see how this trial with, I think there’s some of the competition, they’re trialling, like a floating sub-fielder a batter ⁓ in franchise cricket, which I think maybe coming in at some stage, I think it might have been in the big bash. I think they were talking about having…

a fielder that kind of does a sorry, batter that doesn’t field or it’s like a 12th in the team. I’m interested to see kind of how that goes because I’m not sure about the longevity to try and encourage people to become really good fielders if they know there is still a slot out there where the person doesn’t have to field. And because at least at the moment, at the very least, we know that they have to go out there. So you have to go out there. And if you are

fielding three people that are probably not at the standard you want to, one of them is going to have to end up in a position that’s going to touch the ball quite a lot. So they’re going to buy into a degree in terms of how much fielding they do. Whereas if you start to go down a route where you end up with a bowler that just bowls and a batter that just bats and then goes and sits down and you sub in your great fielder, for the spectacle of the game, I think it probably helps because you get more good fielders on the park. But for a longevity of pathway cricket and people growing up.

I’d want people to aspire to go and be a Tom Abell a Tom Lavenby and be a Jordan Cox, you know, whoever as a fielder not to aspire to be someone that doesn’t have to field. But that’s my lens because I’m a very passionate fielding coach and, you know, I’ve always enjoyed it. So I don’t really have that to worry about. yeah, I guess.

From a selection point of view, think you always have to balance your side. You have to make sure that you’ve got enough runs and wickets on the park to support you playing and winning cricket games. But like I said, there’s only a couple of spaces, I think, where you’ve got someone that you might be, OK, we’ll take a bit of a hit on this person and we’ll try and make sure they get less contacts. ⁓ But I think we’re definitely moving in a line where that’s less relevant because

the batters are hitting it to different places so you can’t kind of put someone in a position where the ball doesn’t go really anymore.

Probably should start drawing to a close, but I would be interested actually to get your opinion on where you see the direction of fielding or fielders actually going in the future. Do you think that we’ll ever see players who command a regular place in professional and international teams solely based on the fielding skills? Or do you think batting in bowling will always be the primary drivers for the main selection?

I

guess it’s a million dollar question, isn’t it? But I think from my perspective, I’d love to see it. I’d love to see it. ⁓ And I think there’s definite margin for it. I think the standard at which you need to get to to enable yourself to do that is extremely high because you need to be over and above what is a growing skill set. So you’re talking about balls going in the air and the catch efficiency in franchise cricket is just going to keep going up. ⁓

because of the volume of practice that people are doing just in game and pre game. ⁓ But I think the difference is that your expectation of what is I guess needed and ⁓ how you want to play the game. But I think the difference is you’re to have to start to see people who are getting up to 85 mile an hour, arms from standing who can blast out people from the boundary.

similar to kind of MLB style arms, you’re going to have to increase speed probably. I would say that’s probably a big factor because speed is a commodity within the field, which is really highly sought after because if you couple speed with very good hands, you’ve got an incredible fielder. If you’ve got incredible hands and you’re slow by nature, you can’t cover the ground, just physically can’t cover the ground as well. So I think if we’re getting players faster, if we’re getting players…

and I mean significantly faster and we’re people to a stage where their arms are able to shut down areas of the park then maybe on if I was playing at big grounds and had a lot of open spaces, I’d start to really consider if it was actually worth me while picking this person because they they may save me runs. ⁓ But the real crux of it is.

If you save six on the on the floor, which is quite a tough ask in terms of your plus and minus, and then a batter picks up a low full toss and bangs it into the crowd. You’ve just lost all of that hard work in one shot. So the balance still really does lie with bat and ball because transactionally the the numbers just happen so frequently with them, whereas a fielder has to work very, hard to save one or two runs that can go in the blink of an eye with the ball or bat.

I’d love to see it. And I think we’re on our direction towards that. you know, we have to be realistic with the fact that the game still is the game. you know, hitting sixes in this T20 World Cup just gone has been a massive commodity for people and scores have gone through the roof. So, you know, your five or six that you save on the floor because you’ve anticipated well, really, in the grand scheme of things, will will not have the same power on selection or ⁓ as that person that can hit three bombs.

at the end of the game.

that makes perfect sense. Before we finish, it would be great to give the viewers and listeners some practical advice. If there’s someone listening to this who wants to become a better fielder or an outstanding fielder, what three things would you recommend that they focus on?

OK, I haven’t queued this up, but I kind of get asked this a lot. So I’ve got them ready, Attack the ball and practice attacking the ball at significant pace, probably faster than you’ve ever attacked it before to try and pick it up cleanly. And don’t worry about failing to start with. So try and top out your energy and skill as how hard you can, how fast you can run at that ball and still pick it up cleanly. Don’t worry about the throw for now. Just run.

as fast as you can and carry as much speed as you can through the pickup. Get really, really good at trusting your hands to be able to do that because you can always add the throw in later on down the line when you’re used to picking up the speed. Practice catching with strong hands. And by that, mean, it’s a relaxed position that doesn’t show tension. That’s tense hand. That’s a strong hand. It can’t be moved in either direction, but it doesn’t have any tension to it. Whereas that

significantly looks like a tense hand They’re supported by being able to absorb the ball with my body and keep my hands still and strong when I catch so that when I deal with extra pace as the ball gets higher or gets faster, I can deal with it because my body is able to support my catch with how my hands don’t work. They are not weak. The ball does not slip through. I’m not worried about pulling my hands off the line of the ball. I’m able to catch that ball and be strong. There’s a difference between

colliding with the ball and the ball hitting a strong hand. And then when I’m throwing and certainly learning to throw, learn to throw in as many different contexts as you can whilst trying to build your fundamentals, your simple throw at the same time. So throw off balance, dive and throw, throw under your shoulder, throw over the top of your shoulder, throw over distance, throw short, throw bounce throws, throw spinning throws, throw off one foot.

at the same time as you’re trying to work on your throw that is static and that is technically in a good position because it will help you to be able to achieve runouts because the most runouts you’re going to get are from positions that are not directly linear and straight to you because the idea is that the batter hits it to the gap, right? He doesn’t hit it straight at you. So you need to practice throwing a ball when the ball’s been hit either side of you, not to take time to set your feet.

you know, shuffle your feet twice towards the target, hit the stumps and the batters two yards past the stumps by this stage. You need to be able to cut that line, throw on the run and practice being, you know, athletic in terms of how you throw the ball whilst working on a throw that is relatively repeatable, can throw straight, can throw to a mitt or a ⁓ keeper that they must be worked on at the same time, not just work on the technically fundamental throw.

And that’s all you do. And then you miss out on all this stuff. But also not just lobbing the ball anywhere you want at speed and off balance the whole time so that you’ve got no idea really how to throw a ball accurately. It’s kind of a linear approach. But those three things, I think you do that often enough. ⁓ You’ll be you’ll be in a really good place.

Well, I’ll try and practice those this week. ⁓ you know, I have to, you know, I’m getting involved with my local cricket club. So, ⁓ well, you know what club cricket clubs are like – they always need somebody at the last minute, won’t they? So I’m expecting a call up at some point. I’ll start working on those three points. think it’s never too late for me. Never too late. Yeah. there’s the coach in you you see ⁓ that’s been absolutely terrific. It’s clear that.

fielding is such a vital part of the game and a skill that is becoming much more important actually year on year but it’s also a skill that is rarely explored in depth particularly you know below pro level so thank you for sharing your insights today thank you for joining us on the pod and you know here’s wishing you the very best of luck for the season ahead thanks Paul

So that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Briony will be back with me next week and we’re gonna be answering some listener questions. So if there’s something you’d like to discuss on the show, then please do send your questions in. And just a quick reminder about the online workshop we’re putting on for young cricketers, which is called Making Pre-Season Count. It’s a one hour session designed

to help young players get well prepared for the season ahead. You can find all the details and how to book a place on that and how to submit your questions in the show notes or by visiting Cricket Mind Online. So thanks for listening. It’s time for stumps.