Beyond safe as houses
Fielding is treated like the middle child in T20 cricket - everyone focuses on bowling and batting and treats fielding as an afterthought
Question: Who is the best fielder in the world at present?
Answer: Myself.
This could be a conversation between Jonty Rhodes and an interviewer in the 1990s. No one would have batted an eyelid. It was a widely accepted fact that Rhodes was peerless in the field. Rhodes was so good he inspired a whole generation of cricketers. He was easily the most recognisable individual on the field and his exploits went viral before going viral was a thing. His star was so bright Ali Bacher used him as an example when he negotiated Benson and Hedges' exit from cricket sponsorship.
"I told them you cannot have Jonty Rhodes diving on cricket fields around the world wearing a shirt advertising tobacco. He is a role model to little kids," Bacher argued.
Six years before he was awarded the Man of the Match award for his fielding effort against the West Indies at the Brabourne Stadium in India, Rhodes picked up his first Man of the Match award because of his fielding. Natal brought him on as a replacement fielder and Rhodes took an incredible seven catches.
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But, the exchange was not between Rhodes and a reporter. It was between Rhodes’ fellow Maritzburg College alumni David Miller and a fan at the height of lockdowns and there wasn’t much to do. Like many bored cricketers, Miller ran a #AskMiller session on Twitter to pass the time. Miller was not being glib. He is given to sincerity and not flippancy. He always has been.
Miller was nine when he scored his first hundred in an under-11 fixture. As his side went back to field, he embraced each member of the team who had failed to score, gave them a hug and saying ‘bad luck’ to them and encouraging them to field well and put everything effort into their fielding. He meant every word.
Miller was the first non-wicket-keeping player to complete 50 catches in T20Is. In 2019, he became the second South African player to win a Player of the Match award for his fielding after Jonty Rhodes - in that match, he also became the first player to win a Player of the Match award for fielding in T20Is. He took four catches and executed two run-outs against Pakistan.
From as early as 1876, baseball not only kept fielding stats but was looking at ways to use those stats to quantify the value of fielders. Over the years, baseball analysts refined their methods of determining the value of fielding efforts. In the 1950s, the Golden Glove Award was introduced as a way to recognise fielding excellence. In baseball, run-saving is not limited to pitching.
In cricket, on the other hand, most of the effort to quantify run prevention or defence has been focused on bowling. What fielding brings to the table is often treated as an aside. For instance, The IPL has the Purple Cap to recognise bowling excellence and the Orange Cap for the top run-scorers. The best fielding gets is an award for the best catch, and it is not as high-profile as the other two.
Part of the reason for that might be that, unlike baseball, cricket does not comprehensively record data on fielding impact. It's not just the data that's missing in cricket, there also aren’t any accepted/uniform metrics to determine great fielding. This makes Miller's 2019 Player of the Match award that much more special. His fielding was simply too good to ignore.
With the that accolade, Miller joined a select group of players. Only four other players have won Player of the Match awards for their fielding: Gus Logie (v Pak at Sharjah in 1986), Vivian Richards (v India at Mumbai in 1989), Jonty Rhodes (v WI at Mumbai (BS) in 1993) and Ambati Rayudu (v Ahmedabad in 2008).
However, even in the absence of comprehensive data or uniform metrics, it is reasonable to say fielding plays an important role in T20 cricket.
Regardless of format, cricket is divided into two: attack and defence. Depending on format, the batting side is either defending or attacking. In Test cricket, the fielding team attacks and close catching is critical to the success of any team because the batters defend their wickets while bowlers attack. Therefore, having palms that are as safe as houses equates to outstanding fielding in the longer format. In Hitting Against the Spin, Ben Jones and Nathan Leamon, say that catching accounts for 74% of the value of fielding actions in Test cricket.
T20 is at the other end of that spectrum. The roles are flipped, batters attack and bowlers defend runs. Catching still matters, but it is not the only thing that matters. Tighter and more athletic fielding is a great defensive asset and goes a long way in improving the chances of defending a total or restricting the opposition to a manageable total.
Having a fielder who cuts twos to ones and cuts off boundaries is invaluable in a format where a boundary has the same value as a three-pointer in basketball and a single is a win for the bowler. David Miller is that type of fielder. "In my opinion, there is not a huge difference in the fielding ability of the vast majority of top-level players but there are clearly a few who add value - like Miller or Maxwell - and a few who have to be hidden at short fine leg/third man," says ESPNcricinfo’s Matt Roller.
According to Mike Bechet, Rhodes was a ‘continual threat in the field ALL the time. He got himself a reputation as a run-out specialist, as well as cutting off at least 20 runs in the field. So when he went out to bat he was on +20.’ He could have been talking about David Miller.
But, Miller did not set out to be the next Jonty Rhodes on the field. It just happened. As a youngster, he was not satisfied being a single-discipline player. He always wanted to be proficient in two or three disciplines. He tried his hand at bowling. The result was messy offbreaks that yielded negligible success and often worked against his team. So he shelved his bowling ambitions and turned his attention to fielding.
“He has always had good hands and was able to catch well from an early age. He used to love having me hit tennis balls at him with a tennis racket in the garden. This used to go on for hours and days on end, the balls would be hit harder and harder and higher and higher. He was never satisfied until he caught everything. He absolutely loved catching. Because he hasn’t bowled since school days fielding is important to him and is the glue that holds everything together,” says Miller’s father, Andrew Miller.
“He never dropped a catch in high school,” says Bechet. And Miller almost never drops catches in international cricket. He is also more successful than most fielders in cutting down runs. And if cricket made more room for the appreciation of excellent fielding beyond a few nice words by fans and commentators, Miller’s legend would not be limited to being a finisher. He would be recognised as both an outstanding finisher and a fielding all-time great.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS
Very nice piece 🙏❤️👏👏