Glenn Maxwell - polarising figure

[honestbharani]

Not as an all round fielder. From what I have seen at least. Rhodes took the best reflex catches ever, was the most acrobatic fielder at backward point and didn't leave it up to chance at close range with direct hits and simply ran and dived at the stumps, knowing that he was quicker than the batsmen. It will be a subjective call and maybe the subject is worth a debate but my mind is made up that Jonty Rhodes was the best cricket fielder in the history of the game.

Rhodes was probably the quickest I'd ever seen to the ball. There was an extra "spectacle" to watching him, as he used to almost be running in when the bowler let go of the ball. That sort of thing went out in the next few years, where fielders wanted to be more balanced when the batsmen were hitting the ball to allow them to move 360 degrees better.

Tough to say as an "all round" fielder, as Rhodes was basically only ever at backward point.

Jonty is up there with Ponting and Symonds as my top three fielders that I can remember watching. All three were amazing fielders. I'd say that Symonds was the most versatile and Ponting the best catcher of the three. Jonty possibly the most athletic. I really find it hard to split them.

Add in the fact that Jonty was usually well inside the circle too compared to even Ponting or Symonds. His anticipation, speed, accuracy, athelticism means he is easily the best fielder I have seen in my time of watching cricket. Versatitlity is something you cant really compare them on but I remember Jonty being midwicket/covers for spinners a lot of times, and fieldign in the deep all the time in ODIs. Even factoring all of that, I think he is simply the best fielder post 1990. He was awesome everywhere he fielded. And he was able to stand closer than any fielder I have ever seen when fielding inside the ring, indicates his tremendous confidence in his ability to anticipate and move and get to the ball even though he is getting closer to the ball and hence less time to react.

 

[GotSpin]

Ponting definitely the best Australian fielder I've ever seen. Unerring accuracy, and some of his catching was just mind-blowing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U423wOQVM2c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJ8KR0E-KQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a434NqQ2_M

Oh boy

Ponting highlights

 

[Burgey]

Rhodes dropped more catches than Ponting or Symonds tbh. Great fielder though. As was Herchelle Gibbs, the 99 WC drop notwithstanding.

 

[Burgey]

Oh boy

Ponting highlights

Catch at 6:05 in the first clip is the best catch I've ever seen, and by a long way too.

 

[Johnners]

The one off Dippenaar is always the first one that springs to mind for me

 

[Daemon]

Ponting and Symonds the best I've ever seen. Collingwood, Jordan and Bavuma pretty ****ing incredible too.

 

[honestbharani]

Rhodes dropped more catches than Ponting or Symonds tbh. Great fielder though. As was Herchelle Gibbs, the 99 WC drop notwithstanding.

Not really.. he got to a lot more than those two too, I suppose. Anyways it is a subjective thing.

 

[Blocky]

I'd say Symonds was better than Rhodes.

Rhodes had an advantage in that around the 1992-1996 era where he was the worlds best fielder, there was barely anyone with his skill set for catching, throwing and ground fielding. The closest guy around at the time was probably Chris Harris, so Rhodes looked absolutely brilliant in comparison, running between wickets also wasn't as good as it is now in the modern era, the only guys I remember being superb between the wickets was a pre-injury Crowe and Dean Jones (who probably still remains the best judge of a run).

As I said earlier, Symonds stood out in a team that had Ponting and Waugh in it. He was probably the best fielder of his time, I'm struggling to think of anyone else that was as good as he was.

 

[Blocky]

Ponting and Symonds the best I've ever seen. Collingwood, Jordan and Bavuma pretty ****ing incredible too.

I'd put Guptill up in that list, he's ****ing unbelievable, and as a pure catcher, Williamson is the closest thing I've seen to Mark Waugh, although Steve Smith has started taking some absolute rippers too.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Symonds and Ponting were better than Rhodes because they're Australian

 

[Red]

I'll have an Australian bias here no doubt, because I am Australian and I actually do think we produce the best fielders, along with the WIs.

Ponting and MWaugh were similar in ways. Both had amazing anticipation and covered ground so well it looked easy. Ponting was the best throw I've seen, incredible ability to run guys out. Both spent the latter parts of their careers in the slips, MWaugh the best slipper I've seen, Ponting good safe as house in there. Remember hearing Waugh say once he got bored in slips and loved getting out to cover or point for a run around.

Symonds was just a beast at stopping shots and running guys out. Big physical presence, probably a bit like Clive Lloyd was in his prime. Sound catcher too. Brilliant anywhere in the inner ring.

Rhodes and Collingwood are the two other guys who obviously stood out as great in-fielders in my time of watching. I was young but I can remember Viv and Roger Harper.

Slips is a different tale, with guys like Taylor, Gooch, Alderman, Smith, Kallis all being great slippers.

 

[Daemon]

Lots of teams are lacking safe slip fielders these days. Australia have Renshaw now who looks decent and Smith of course, but their keeper is a bit poo. India have Rahane but as long as Kohli stays in the slips we're ****. Pakistan are Pakistan. SL never get any edges. There's a lot of spectacular catches being taken but a lot of regulation being dropped as well.

 

[Adders]

This threads got me thinking.........are fielding standards right now across all formats the worst they've been for around 20 years (possibly more)?

As RH pointed out, Australia was at one time churning out dead set guns one after the other........but right now no one stands out apart from Maxwell and Warner (and his arm isn't as deadly as it used to be) Maybe Smith is decent but he's not up there with the likes of M Waugh, Ponting, Symonds et al IMO.

England are dead set ****ing ****e at the moment, we have Jordan who is awesome but he can't get himself picked. Haven't seen too much of the Windies of late but what I have they just seem lazy and uncommitted, SA have Bavuma and ABdV I suppose but not sure anyone else stands out as incredible off the top of my head.

Some of the fielding in the BB this year has just been lolworthy.

Is this a thing? And if so why do you reckon that is? I'm sure if anything more time is spent on fielding drills now than would have been the case 10 or 15 years ago.

 

[cnerd123]

This threads got me thinking.........are fielding standards right now across all formats the worst they've been for around 20 years (possibly more)?

As RH pointed out, Australia was at one time churning out dead set guns one after the other........but right now no one stands out apart from Maxwell and Warner (and his arm isn't as deadly as it used to be) Maybe Smith is decent but he's not up there with the likes of M Waugh, Ponting, Symonds et al IMO.

England are dead set ****ing ****e at the moment, we have Jordan who is awesome but he can't get himself picked. Haven't seen too much of the Windies of late but what I have they just seem lazy and uncommitted, SA have Bavuma and ABdV I suppose but not sure anyone else stands out as incredible off the top of my head.

Some of the fielding in the BB this year has just been lolworthy.

Is this a thing? And if so why do you reckon that is? I'm sure if anything more time is spent on fielding drills now than would have been the case 10 or 15 years ago.

I actually disagree with this. I think the bar of what is considered 'average' has risen dramatically. There are fewer stand out fielders than before, but that's just because everyone is just so much better.

Slip fielding does seem to be on the decline tho. In India's case this is because all the players in our team, barring Ashwin and Rahane, didn't really grow up fielding in the slips. They're all kinda learning on the job. Pujara is a natural short leg I think? Kohli, Jadeja, Nohit, and all the other young bats are primarily outfielders.

 

[Adders]

You may be right, perhaps it's just a perception I've got as most of the cricket I do watch involves Eng and or Australia. As mentioned England are just diabolical of late having set really good standards during Strauss's reign, Australia who were always the benchmark just seem to be run of the mill now.......not saying they're poor, but they don't seem to have the players now who everyone can agree is a gun.

On the whole I thought the standard of fielding throughout the Indian series was pretty ordinary?

 

[cnerd123]

You may be right, perhaps it's just a perception I've got as most of the cricket I do watch involves Eng and or Australia. As mentioned England are just diabolical of late having set really good standards during Strauss's reign, Australia who were always the benchmark just seem to be run of the mill now.......not saying they're poor, but they don't seem to have the players now who everyone can agree is a gun.

On the whole I thought the standard of fielding throughout the Indian series was pretty ordinary?

Most of India's dropped catches were in the slips tho.

England did drop a ton yea. Which is strange I suppose, because man for man none of them strikes me as being bad fielders.

It's probably more of a concentration/mental fatigue thing than it's a skill thing I guess? Maybe with so much cricket happening, even perfectly good and capable fielders are now slipping up in the field?

 

[honestbharani]

India's ground fielding and the average speed of the Indian fielder across the outfield have improved immeasurably over the last 10 years or so.. What we can call the Dhoni era. Slip catching has gone down the drain after the golden generation all retired/left though. But I am still holding out hope that under Virat the new team and a new cordon will get better as we go on. Lets not forget he has only been in charge for 1 year and the batting line up has been basically churning all through his reign, mostly due to his decisions but still..

 

[Daemon]

Slip fielding standards have decreased in terms of % of drop catches imo, but the number and ridiculousness of some of the screamers being taken are still increasing I believe. Duminy and Smith's in the recent series stood out in particular to me. Plenty of others as well.

Outfielding is light years ahead on average.

 

[Burgey]

The standard of ground fielding in general is better than ever imo and will probably only continue to improve. Some of the efforts put in to save boundaries by these bloody giant praying mantis fast bowlers these days are taken for granted but would be considered outrageous about 20 years back.

 

[Furball]

Slip catching is probably on the wane because it's such a specialist position but cricketers spend most of their time playing in formats where the position only really exists as a token gesture when the ball is new or when the fielding captain wants to appear aggressive for an over or so.

Even guys like Mark Waugh are from an era where an Ashes tour was the full May-September experience with 5 Tests plus 17 First Class games thrown in. That's a lot of cricket to refine your slip game. Whereas a Steve Smith might stand at 2nd slip in Tests but he'll spend the rest of the home summer all over the outfield.