IPL 2014: Kieron Pollard and the art of pulling off stunning catches

A week ago the Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera was witness to a spectacle. Fans were left stunned as Kieron Pollard pulled off arguably the most breathtaking catch of this IPL. It was nothing short of sensational and stunned the home fans into momentary silence. Kevon Cooper had pulled powerfully to long on and the ball looked to be going well over the rope but Pollard at long-on leapt in the air and stuck out a periscopic right arm. The ball stuck but the force of the shot pushed him back. Realising he was losing his balance, Pollard somehow made sure that he didn’t touch the rope, jumped in the air, threw the ball inside the rope, jumped back on the field, almost slipped, then dived full length to pouch the ball with both hands. All in this in just a couple of seconds. It takes some talent to make so many decisions in a short span of time and come up something special like that. You can watch the replay a billion times and still sit bewildered, wondering how he caught that ball. [caption id=“attachment_1541057” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kieron Pollard completes his stunning catch to send back Kevon Cooper. BCCI[/caption] Pollard is considered one of the best fielders in international cricket and that catch showed why. He may have just recovered from a horrific knee injury but the kind of athleticism he showed, putting his body on the line, underlines his commitment to the game. No matter how many hours you spend doing fielding drills, how many brilliant catches you take during in practice, what matters is pulling it off in an actual match. Pulling off stunners once or twice can be termed a fluke but pulling them off on consistent basis does require special talent. The T20 format has revolutionised not only batting and bowling but fielding too. In an interview to Sportingmadness.in, Jonty Rhodes, the current Mumbai Indians fielding coach, spoke about how fielding skills have been influenced by the shortest format. “You can’t be a fast bowler bowling four overs and go and hide at third man because with the wide array of shots being played by the batsmen these days, the ball will come to you wherever you are and one or two runs make a huge difference to the outcome of a game. Rhodes also stressed that it’s the effort you put in matters the most in fielding. “I think what I try to do is if I act on the players, I am not marking them on the balls that were dropped or the balls that were missed. I am watching for the balls that they haven’t made an effort for. So my whole philosophy is no matter what language you speak, if you don’t go for it you’ll never ever know and that’s always been my philosophy. I would rather dive and miss the ball than stand there after the game thinking, “if I had, could I have saved it? “Fortunately most of the players, when they were growing up, watched me field so they know that the philosophy does work,” Jonty said. Pollard has been pulling off these spectacular catches on the boundary consistently and he too accepts the fact that with the arrival of T20, the players need to do something extraordinary. The West Indian all-rounder says that he practices the tough boundary catches with Rhodes but that is no guarantee it will come off in the game. “I don’t practice it a lot, I just practice it as normal, I do what you need to do to prepare for any game. Yes, now in T20 cricket you have to try to do things out of the ordinary. Jonty is one of our fielding coaches we try different things. We stand on the boundary try to hit it just over our heads. First we practice it a bit but at the end of the day, when once you are on the cricket field that’s where it actually comes off. “For me last year and this year it has been coming off, I have to thank god for that and hopefully all continues to stick,” Pollard said at a meet and greet session with kids at a Adidas store. He didn’t just show the athleticism on the boundary but also some football skills with the run out of Yuvraj Singh against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Rilee Russouw had missed his pull and the ball dropped on the pitch, Yuvraj was at the other end and they scampered through for a quick single. Pollard stormed forward and kicked the ball onto the stumps. Yuvraj was found well short. Even Rhodes in the dug-out enjoyed and applauded the fancy footwork. A team-man that he is, Pollard rated Yuvraj’s run out above the Cooper catch just because it helped Mumbai Indians at a crucial juncture. “If Yuvraj had got on strike or he had taken off, it would have been curtains for MI at Wankhede. That was a crucial time and it was more memorable.” It was unfortunate that I had to catch out my country mate [Cooper]. If I had only known it was him,” he adds jokingly. We’ve seen some splendid catches in the deep from Chris Lynn, Morne Morkel, Mitchell Starc and Shaun Marsh this season but Pollard has done it on regular basis. It doesn’t only require constant practice and effort but also special talent to pull them off in the middle. Very few possess that talent and just like the coach, Jonty, the pupil has been blessed with that special talent.