‘Easy to sit and criticise’: Ex-India coach after Sunil Gavaskar-Stuart Broad tear down Yashasvi Jaiswal

Ex-India coach slams Sunil Gavaskar and Stuart Broad for attacking Yashasvi Jaiswal. (Photos: X and ICC)

India's performance in the field has emerged as a major worry going into the second Test in Birmingham. India's catching was, to use a polite term, terrible in the series opener at Headingley, Leeds.

Together, the Indian fielders missed eight catches during crucial moments in the match. The outcome might have been very different if they had taken even half of those. Remarkably, one person, Yashasvi Jaiswal, dropped four of those eight catches.

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While everyone's opinion was analytical, Jaiswal took the brunt of criticism, but former England pacer Stuart Broad and India captain Sunil Gavaskar were almost brutal in their assessments. Reiterating that fielding in English conditions is not easy, former India fielding coach R Sridhar criticized their opinions. After dropping Ben Duckett on 15, Ollie Pope on 60, and Harry Brook on 83 in the first innings, Jaiswal dropped Duckett when he was three runs short of a century in the second innings.

"Going on the first tour to England and adapting and being a good slip fielder is not an easy task. You can practice all you want, but in the match, it’s quite challenging. The conditions are very cold, so the fingers get very numb. And secondly, the Duke's ball wobbles a lot as it comes towards you. It’s not easy to catch," Sridhar told Sportstar.

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"In England, sighting is very difficult. The Oval or Leeds are two of the most challenging grounds. Leeds has a slope which runs down from the pavilion side to the Kirkstall Lane end. And it’s very windy, and that messes with your rhythm and depth perception. Even England dropped catches. It’s not always about ability – often, it's about conditions."

As he watched India drop catches, Gavaskar referred to their fielding performance as "not Test class" and urged the players to skip the optional sessions and practice instead. Broad, on the other hand, was slightly more critical, saying: "I mean this in the kindest possible way, they have to take their catches. They can't lob three or four of them on the floor when you're trying to get 10 wickets to take a Test match."

Sridhar had a telling response to that. "He [Jaiswal] is actually an excellent gully fielder. Make no mistake. He's had just two bad games – one in Melbourne, one here in Leeds. Otherwise, he's been exceptional. The catches he took against Bangladesh in Kanpur were outstanding. It's easy to sit in the commentary box and criticise, but these are challenging conditions, and for many of them, it’s their first experience of this environment," he told Sportstar.

"It has happened twice. He [Jaiswal] has gone down that road where he dropped one, and then he ended up dropping two-three. It happened in Melbourne before. Now it has happened again. So, this is something he needs to work on. I think he needs to work on his recovery from the error aspect of his fielding," Sridhar told RevSportz separately.