Indian National Cricket Team fielding coach T Dilip has provided key updates on India’s competitive fielding practice ahead of the start of the two-match Test series against the Bangladesh National Cricket Team.
India and Bangladesh will play their first test match from September 19-23 at Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, MA, Chepauk and the players are leaving no stone unturned in preparation for the start of the big test season.
The Rohit Sharma-led team has already had a few practice sessions and all the players have seen the heavy stones in the hot and humid conditions in Chennai.
Meanwhile, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on its official X arm shared a video in which T Dilip revealed the details of India’s innings session. T Dilip said that the Indian team was split into two halves during the catching competition practice and the Virat Kohli-led side won.
“The idea of today’s session was to bring everyone together as a team exercise. We had two segments of it, the first segment was a competition exercise, given the humidity in Chennai, we made sure the volume was less but the intensity so we split it into two groups and catch we had a bit of a competition between them and the team with the least number of errors won and it was Virat’s team that won today,” he said.
Overall I would say it was a fantastic session – T Dilip
Speaking later in the video, T Dilip claimed that bowlers and all-rounders practice fielding along with strong edge and field catches, while batsmen practice slip catches. He elaborated:
“And then we separated the two squads, the bowlers and the all-rounders into two stations where both off-field and in-field catching and attacking ground areas were monitored. The second group, the slip cord batsman group. , the standard slip cord catch , also focused on a short-legged silly point with some reflexes.”
He signed off by saying that the players had a fantastic session in the hot conditions and kept the intensity high throughout the training. T Dilip said:
“Overall I’d say given the conditions, especially in the hot sun, I was used to it. It was a fantastic session. But a big part of this team was the intensity at all three stations, regardless of the conditions or the weather. High level.”
Intensity 🔛 point 😎🏃♂️
Field coach T Dilip concludes #TeamIndia‘s competitive fielding drill 👌👌 – By @RajalArora #INDvBAN | @IDFCFIRSTBank pic.twitter.com/eKZEzDhj9A
— BCCI (@BCCI) September 16, 2024
It should be noted that T. Dilip was the only member of the coaching staff led by Rahul Dravid who was retained as the field coach during Gautam Gambhir’s transition as the head coach. His work is widely credited for improving Indian fielding standards and introducing a medal ceremony that motivates players.
Meanwhile, India will be playing Test cricket for the first time since the series against England earlier in the year, while Bangladesh will enter the series on the back of a historic Test series win over a Shan Masood-led side in Pakistan.
 shared a video on their official X handle where T Dilip revealed the details of India's fielding session. T Dilip stated that Team India were split in two halves during the catching competition drill and Virat Kohli-led side emerged as the winner.){kind=link}