Ravindra Jadeja is among top three fielders in the world: R Sridhar

How has modern-day fielding changed according to you?
The change starts from the grassroots level. Couple of things. One is a tournament like the IPL, which has brought about a lot of professionalism in fielding. Second is fitness of the players. Three is the mindset, which is probably the most important part. So it is a combination of all these things.

As far as India is concerned, you have better facilities at the grassroots level for the players to enhance and work upon their fielding skills. Coming up the ladder, once they come into their first-class teams or the IPL, the mindset has changed a lot, where fielding today is not a secondary skill any more. I always keep talking about that. IPL is a big contributor in getting fielding to its lofty standards like it is now.

Earlier, most players used to just concentrate on their batting or bowling. Has fielding now become a primary aspect of the game?
Oh yes, big time. Like you rightly said, fielding is something you did when you were not batting or bowling. But now if you see, most of the professional teams do the fielding training first, and then move on to batting or bowling. It's gives you an example of the change in mindset. Today, the difference between two teams could be fielding on any given day, like you saw in the game last night (Friday, Kings XI Punjab vs Rajasthan Royals). Rajasthan just out-fielded us in the game, although we were really good too. But they won the big moments in the field. The edge between two teams could be fielding, so that's where teams work their backs off nowadays.

Do you think fielding comes naturally to most Indians, or is it something that needs to be worked upon?
Look, India is not a country where we play too much of contact sports, nor do we have good grounds for the young kids to fall or dive on. So it's something that doesn't come naturally to Indians, except for a very few athletes whom you can handpick. Other than that, it's a learned skill. And that is where the BCCI comes into play. Even if you go to any district level grounds nowadays, you get decent grounds wherein kids can fall and dive without fear of being hurt of injured. So that's come a long way in helping Indian fielding.

And again, it's totally the mindset. For example, you can have a guy who has got great reflexes, brilliant reactions, but if he doesn't want to stand in a close-in fielding position, there is no way he is going to catch. As long as the player wants the ball to come to him, wherein he wants to show off his fielding skills and how good he is, then even an ordinary fielding can become the best. It's completely a mind thing.

You've coached a lot of young guys including in the Indian U-19 team. Do you thing Indians are more excited about fielding now?
Yes. Again I would like to bring in IPL. Today, if we have 40,000 people at the Wankhede, the first thing they like to see is fours and sixes. The next best thing is diving stops and spectacular catches. So in terms of crowd popularity, fielding is right up there with batting. That's where players work hard, because they know they can get more popular. There are rewards of being a good fielding. It helps in selection. So players really don't want to be the one running from fine-leg to fine-leg to hide themselves, they want to run from point to point.

Also, today if you're good in one skill, you may not find a place in the team. You've got to be excellent in two skills at least, and if you're good in three then you're a bonus for the team. So one skill is a given: fielding. The other skill is their choice: batting or bowling.

So do you have a set training regimen or is it individual specific?
As much as possible, I try and differ it from player to player. I try to understand the strengths and weaknesses of all players and then work on it. We cover all the bases for all players, but we still try and individualise. Like I did a lot of point work with (Parvinder) Awana (during training on Saturday). You'll be wondering that Awana is not going to field at point, but it was just to get him to move faster on the field, to understand the importance of staying low and being balanced. The more he does that stuff, it will improve his reactions and anticipation skills. So when he goes to fine-leg or long-off, it becomes easier for him. When I work with Viru (Virender Sehwag), I work on a lot of short fine-leg stuff, short mid-wicket skills. So I try and develop players in such ways and make it player-centric.

Like we saw with South Africa in the World Cup semifinal, even one of the better fielding teams can make errors on the field under pressure. What do you do to try and avoid it with the Indian team?
Pressure in fielding is enormous, to be very honest. Every ball can come to you, and with so many eyes, eyeballs and cameras, the pressure can get to you. The best way to overcome pressure while fielding is to start thinking positively. That's what I tell everyone. The mental aspect of fielding is not given enough emphasis on. We have triggers to keep the focus on between balls. I encourage players to visualise taking brilliant catches, brilliant run outs, relax between balls. And as the bowler runs in, you have a trigger which helps you focus. It's important because you have to focus only for two-three seconds, the other 60 seconds is dead time. So there's more dead time than active time. How to handle the dead time determines how well you handle the time when the ball comes to you. So I have various mental strategies to handle that dead time, where I use various various relaxation techniques, or parking method – where you just look at something in the crowd to relax --, some people encourage bowlers. Everyone has their own trigger, own routine. I encourage them to do their own routines, and have a trigger just before the ball is bowled to get their concentration on.

India's fielding in England was poor. What did you do to turn things around in Australia and the World Cup?
The challenge for us before the World Cup, and I told this to all the players, was to become one of the top two fielding teams in the world. As I'm seeing Mohit Sharma there on the big screen (in the Chennai Super Kings vs Sunrisers Hyderabad match), he is a terrific fielder, athlete and a great student of the game. Similarly, I worked a lot on the mindset with the Indian team, especially the positions of each and every fielder. We had these triggers, routines, talking to them one-on-one. We had a lot of time in between matches during the WC. So we worked a lot individually. It doesn't necessarily have to be on the ground, it could just on the breakfast table, sitting in a room having coffee. So there was a lot of work that went in there.

This Indian team doesn't have a fielder that the captain needs to hide. Even fast bowlers like Mohit and Umesh Yadav are good athletes. That must be an asset, isn't it?
You hit the nail on the head when you say good athletes. That's the biggest thing. The fitness levels of the current Indian team, especially the fast bowlers, is what is making them such wonderful fielders. And that is why we don't have to hide them anywhere. In fact, you bring them into prominent places on the field. So that's a brilliant thing. I always believe that the fast bowlers are the fittest guys in the team because they are doing the most difficult part of the sport. So we develop on their skills. And it is the fitness levels that has given us the edge, and that is what the Indian skipper is very particular about. We're very fortunate that we don't have to hide anyone on the field. We've thus got a wonderful team which is looking good for the future.

Could you name a few young Indian players that have excited you...
We have quite few good Indian players, like Sanju Samson, whom I've worked with in the last five years. He's very exciting even with his fielding. Unmukt Chand is good, Manan Vohra is a terrific fielder. Axar Patel is now an international (laughs). Ravindra Jadeja is among the top three fielders in the world, no doubt about it. I can proudly say that. He is such a natural athlete.

Finally, what are your ambitions as a coach? Do you hope to stick around with the Indian team for a longer time?
Look, my coaching philosophy is simple. I don't coach cricket, I coach people. So I enjoy my coaching, irrespective of what level I'm coaching at. I'm happy coaching the Indian team because I'm making a contribution to the national team. But even if I'm coaching at a lower level, I will do it with the same passion and intensity. That is what I love to do. Because in the end, it's not about how good your skills are, it's about how good a human being you are. And if cricket is a medium to coach that, I'm more than happy to do it.