Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was spotted pulling the legs of Team India’s fielding coach T Dilip during a training session ahead of the ICC ODI World Cup semi-final against New Zealand.
Ashwin seems to be enjoying his time in the Indian dressing room, and the spinner dropped a video of his banter with Dilip on Instagram. Taking a dig at Dilip’s giant kit bags, Ashwin wrote in the caption, “Toy shop or stationery shop?”
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The clip opens at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai where the Indian cricketers were going through their final practice session on the eve of the World Cup semi-final. When T Dilip was training his players for high catches, Ashwin decided to have a look inside his kit bags, which were full of cricket accessories, especially meant for fielding practice.
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As Ashwin opened the first bag, he found several balls inside it. The other bag had several specially designed bats. While one of them is made of rubber, the other one is a wooden baseball bat. Dilip later explained to Ashwin about the usage of each bat. From the wicketkeeper to fielders positioned at slips, Dilip has suitable bats for everyone. In the end, Ashwin spoke about the best-fielder award, while referring to the Alan Border medal, which is awarded to the best cricketer in Australia every year.
The introduction of fielding medals has certainly benefitted the Indian team in this World Cup as every player is up to give their best on the ground. However, according to T Dilip, this custom has been going on inside the dressing room for the last four months. After India claimed a 160-run win over the Netherlands in the last league match, Dilip spoke about the rationale behind these ‘Fielder of the Match’ awards during the post-match press conference.
“Basically, it is about judging attitude. Yes, there are statistics for catches taken but we look at the overall contribution. An innings has 300 balls, how do you handle them on the field? This is not just about one brilliant catch, it is about the overall effort. We have been doing this for a while, at least for the last four months. But only now it has gone on social media,” Dilip said.
Suryakumar Yadav was chosen as the best fielder of the Netherlands game. KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja were also in contention. But Surya edged past them due to his overall performance in the match. He received the award from the groundsmen.
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