Fielding brilliance underpins New Zealand’s low-key threat as they lay down a marker even in defeat
Andrew Fidel Fernando02-Mar-20251:23
Manjrekar: Not seen so many brilliant fielding moments in an innings before
Betrayal. That’s the look on Virat Kohli’s face as an entire stadium goes quiet for a second, inhaling in awe, having borne witness to a little miracle.Kohli has hit hundreds of thousands of cut shots in his life. He has beaten many thousands of backward points with that shot. Most importantly, he has made enough pilgrimages to the halls of the cricket gods (what are his intense net sessions but an act of the most dutiful worship?) to know that, if you nail one that hard and place it that far away from the fielder, the gods will deliver unto you the kind of dismissive early boundary that makes millions all around the world sit up and say, “Uff, he’s looking good for another big one here”.In this moment, however, Kohli has just had his cricketing worldview shaken. He doesn’t quite know where in that universe to place himself.Glenn Phillips would never claim to be a god, but in the Champions Trophy, his catches at backward point have been the closest we have had to acts of divine intervention. At the moment the outermost skin-cells on his fingers make contact with the outermost white lacquer of the cricket ball, he has his right arm outstretched – shades of Adam, reaching out to God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.Related
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Unlike Adam, Phillips had to throw himself both feet off the ground to close the distance. And unlike the artist Michelangelo up on that scaffolding, Phillips is working in three dimensions; he had to reach back behind him to catch up with the ball. He had already taken a mirror-image of this catch in the tournament opener, stretching every molecule of his body in the air, his arm reaching behind him again, to shake the cricketing faith of Mohammad Rizwan on that occasion. In whatever this Champions Trophy’s version of the Sistine Chapel is (the shiny new pavilion at the Lahore Stadium?), you could have Glenn Phillips reaching out to commune with the majesty that is Glenn Phillips.Phillips fields almost exclusively in what analysts call the “hot zones”, which means the areas to which the ball is most likely to travel, and in which your best fielder(s) can make the biggest difference. He roams the straight boundaries when the spinners are in operation, and also fields on the deep midwicket rope, when hitters that favour that region – such as Hardik Pandya – are swinging late in the innings.But backward point at the start of an innings is essentially the living-room mantlepiece as far as cricket fielding positions are concerned, and this is where Phillips gets his pride of place. Rachin Ravindra could probably do the job, but he’s usually rocking a boundary position. Mitchell Santner could also do the job, but he’s often at mid-off, mid-on, or the covers, chatting every now and then to his bowlers. Kane Williamson definitely could do the job, but we know why he isn’t doing it. In all their age group and regional teams, Ravindra, Santner and Williamson were likely the best fielders around. In other top national men’s teams, they would be the best in show. But there is no contest in this team – Phillips blows them all out of the water, without any shadow of a doubt.Glenn Phillips flies across from point to grab the half-chance from Virat Kohli•ICC/Getty ImagesHe is so good, he even sometimes makes you forget that others have put in an extraordinary 50 overs of effort too. In this match, it was likely Williamson who had the greater body of work. His diving one-handed catch at backward point to get rid of Ravindra Jadeja in the 46th over was a classic of Williamson cool (a stunning catch, a little toss of the ball in the air before he rolls it over to the umpire).But then there was also the running-backwards, overhead catch to dismiss Axar Patel in the 20th over. That ball went off Axar’s top edge, and it was clear that Williamson had lost this white ball in the high, white canopy that shades the stands. But if you were teaching a university course entitled “Catches running backwards 101”, Williamson’s catch could form the majority of the syllabus. Watch the ball closely enough before it disappears from view that you have a good idea of its flight path. Try to pace your run backwards so that when the ball comes down, it does so just over your back shoulder. And keep your hands low, so that on the off chance it suddenly appears somewhere you don’t expect, you can react late and have a chance of snatching it.As it happened, Williamson had judged its flight path so well, it came down right over his back shoulder. He plucked it with his right hand only, as if it were a ripe mango on a low branch. But he had been well-placed in the event the ball had made a more difficult descent too. When we break down New Zealand’s fielding, we are talking about practitioners operating in the very highest realms of their craft.In the last over of the match, Pandya hit one in the air towards Phillips at deep midwicket, and because Phillips made a misjudgement – not running hard enough at the ball, perhaps because he lost it in that canopy – he neither got to the ball on the full, nor fielded it cleanly, which should have given Pandya a chance to claim an easy two. But because Phillips was the fielder, Pandya dared not risk taking a single that would have left him off strike with No. 10 Mohammad Shami at the other end.Phillips has built up such a reputation now, that even his screw-ups do not hurt his team. When batters see him there, they think primarily about the man, and not the quality of their shot, or even the quality of Phillips’ run towards the ball.And whereas for other teams, spectacular catches such as this are moments of euphoric joy, for New Zealand’s fielders they are only more entries into a ledger that they have the most entries on. There are grins, hugs, tossings-up of the ball, and gentle rollings to the umpire. Then they get into their huddle, and seem to shoot the breeze. You wonder if they know, or even care about, exactly how many millions of minds they have just blown.
