In addition to the creation of a fielding points system which tracks the team as a whole, which the PCB is currently working on, I believe there is scope for some easy but effective solutions to quickly jumpstart fielding at the domestic level.
We have already seen fielding become more competitive over the course of the tournament, as teams like Sindh and KPK have realized that exceptional fielding is one of the core reasons for Northern being so far ahead of the pack, and have thus followed suit. There is a notably different energy now visible that was not there earlier in the tournament.
We also see that older players are gradually being phased out, especially the less-than-fit ones, and are slowly replaced with performing youngsters from the second XI. What this effectively means is that the PCB has created a self-correcting system which will grow in quality and standard over time.
What is important now is to create further catalysts and incentives to push fielding farther. The easiest of these options is allocating a Rs 5,000 per match award for the fielder of the match. This costs an extremely nominal amount of Rs 120,000 over the course of 24 matches in the tournament. If extended to List A and First Class, the total comes out to be something like Rs 3 lac per season.
A mechanism like this will allow good domestic fielders like Shadab Khan to earn increased sums of money, and onlooking teammates will find motivation to put in their best efforts every match to dive around, take catches, stop boundaries, and effect run outs.
Moving up in the cost-structure, a more expensive option will be the hiring of trained fitness coaches at every region (who will work with the 6 regional High Performance Centers moving forward). Though this has the potential to be expensive, there is a lot of room for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking on behalf of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
One solution is to actually pay no money to fitness coaches at all — rather, if the PCB were to set-up partnerships with renowned gyms and athletic facilities across the country, displaying their logos on the t-shirts of domestic players in exchange for access to their best trainers and facilities, there is the possibility of engineering a win-win scenario. In such a situation, these elite gyms will be provided with free marketing and exposure, while Pakistan domestic players have access to excellent trainers and nutritionists.
The final solution on my cost-structure deals with the inefficiency of fielding coaches. It seems most fielding coaches (even those working with the Pakistan team) resort to a standard set of fielding drills and protocols which unfortunately do not raise the benchmark. There is room for a strict training regime provided by the Pakistan Cricket Board in a top-down approach, where a “Director of Fitness” is appointed to construct strict but fair training regimens (such as 3 laps around the ground every morning). Here, the PCB may also include specialized drills regarding fielding at the boundary (lobbing catches back mid-air) and other fielding situations commonplace in modern cricket.
It would also be good if there is are similar incentives at the national team level, though it is important to grow the culture at the grassroots such that it is commonplace even before someone makes it to the national team. These suggestions are meant to be open to improvement and out-of-the-box thinking, and comments are very much welcomed.
I do see a day where Pakistan fielding is the best in the world. It just requires the right management.
