Brad Haddin, the former Australian wicketkeeper, asserts that India’s alarming number of dropped catches during the first Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy was not merely an isolated incident but rather indicative of an “attitude” problem within the team. He believes that if new skipper Shubman Gill aims to forge a memorable legacy during his captaincy, he must instigate an “attitude adjustment” within the squad.
During the tightly contested match at Headingley, India squandered as many as 10 catching opportunities, ultimately allowing England to convert what could have been a close contest into a comfortable five-wicket victory, seizing a 1-0 series lead. While many of these crucial drops came from young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant, even typically reliable fielders like Ravindra Jadeja faltered.
“Every great team, no matter what year you’re playing, the one stand out feature they’ve always had is that they’ve been a great fielding team,” Haddin remarked on the LiSTNR Podcast. “And I think that is one legacy Gill has start to leave now on this team. He needs an attitude adjustment. If you want to field well and compete the whole time, it’s only attitude. You can do all your technical work off the field and have as many coaches as anyone, but it won’t matter. Even in the IPL this year, the catching was horrible. And that could be a byproduct,” he added, connecting the recent Test woes to broader fielding trends.
While India’s batting coach Sitanshu Kotak downplayed the poor fielding as an anomaly, former Indian great Ravichandran Ashwin offered a different perspective, attributing the difficulties to adapting to the Duke’s ball—which is harder and larger than India’s SG ball—in the prevailing cold conditions. The retirements of senior players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, alongside the departures of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, have not only initiated a batting transition but also dismantled India’s long-established slip cordon system.
