Allan Border says fielding standards are widening the gap between teams, analysis, second Test in Brisbane

Schooled on the importance of catching by respected coach Bob Simpson, Australian great Allan Border believes an increased focus on fielding would reduce the growing disparity between nations in Test nation.

With the final Test of the summer beginning on Thursday at the Gabba, Australia is on the verge of sweeping all five Tests in series against Pakistan and the West Indies.

The Australians have been largely dominant with the ball and have had moments of fortune with the bat against Pakistan in the first three Tests and the West Indies in Adelaide when catches have been spilled.

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Retired opener David Warner and all-rounder Mitch Marsh were among the Australian batsmen to benefit from shoddy fielding from Pakistan in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, while the West Indies were far from competitive last week in Adelaide.

Pakistan opener Abdullah Shafique was a repeat offender during a dispiriting series and was ultimately removed from the slips cordon.

“Visiting teams keep dropping catches. That is what keeps costing them,” Border told The Follow On.

“That seems to me, through the Pakistan series and the game against the West Indies, even though it might not have made too much difference to the result, it certainly does not help your cause, does it?”

The Fox Cricket expert, 68, said when Simpson took over as Australian coach in 1986, improving the fielding standards of the national team was an immediate priority and delivered almost instantaneous success.

Australia won the World Cup in 1987 and defeated New Zealand for the first time in four years in a Test series in the same year as it began to build towards becoming a power in the 1990s.

“(It was) the very first thing Simmo addressed,” Border said.

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“He basically maintained that if you become a really, really solid and high-quality fielding team, even if you have not got the best cricket team, you can stay in the contest for longer, if the other side is better than you.

“You can win games just on fielding alone. That was very good for the side at that time. We had been through some tough periods (and) had not been playing good cricket. And a lot of it was because we were dropping catches. And that is what visiting sides to Australia are doing at the moment.

“You make it hard on yourself if you start dropping catches and that is what Simmo recognised in us. In the mid-1980s, we had got a bit slack in that area, if that is the right term, and we needed a kick up the backside in terms of drilling us to be a better fielding side.

And the results showed.”

During the Test series against Pakistan, middle-order star Mark Waugh gave a masterclass in slips catching to demonstrate what the tourists were doing wrong in the cordon.

Former Australian wicketkeeper Brad Haddin lamented at the MCG that the tourists were effectively practising their catching from a stationary position with little anticipation required.

Border, who will provide analysis for the second Test of the West Indies series for Fox Cricket, said he finds it hard to understand why there is not a greater focus on the skillset around the world, saying it would reduce the gap between the powerful nations and the rest.

“The best teams throughout history are teams that have quality players, but they don’t miss catches when they come along. They take catches,” Border said.

“It is one thing to catch all the regulation catches. But if you stick your hand out and catch a screamer, that can change the course of momentum very quickly.

“It is such an important part of the game that sometimes gets overlooked. It is seen as a bit ho-hum.

“It is a fairly boring part of the practice participation, the fielding drills you go through, but at the end of the day, you spend half the game out in the field and if you want to win games, you probably spend more than half the game out in the field.”