Cricket has a new superhero: Rudraneil Sengupta writes on Glenn Phillips
He flies through the air. He vanquishes his opponents. The New Zealander is proving, all over again, that fielding done right is an art form.
Virat Kohli looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Eyebrows knitted, his mouth a grim line, he stared for a moment towards point, before shaking his head very slightly, and walking back to the pavilion.
New Zealand’s Glenn Phillips had just taken a catch that stunned Kohli and, to be fair, everyone else watching. He dove to his right at full stretch, flying, flying, flying, through the air like a predatory bird, snatching the ball up mid-flight.
The Kohli ball wasn’t the only “superman” catch Phillips pulled off at the recently concluded Champions Trophy. He used another one, pretty much the mirror image of it, to dismiss Pakistan and Mohammad Rizwan; then another in the final against India, leaping and reaching high above him, to take out Shubman Gill. (India did eventually win, of course.)
There is little doubt, even in a cricketing age where athletic, agile fielding are the norm, that Glenn Phillips is the best fielder in the world.
The sight of him in that flying leap sent a powerful lightning strike of a memory through my mind: of watching the great Jonty Rhodes, tousled blonde hair flying, bright green flannel whipping around him, doing things on the cricket field no one had done before.
Just a few months after his international debut in 1992, Rhodes changed the world of fielding forever.
Until then, it had been the aspect of the game that earned the least respect. Many great batters and great bowlers held fielding in disdain.
No one could continue to do that after watching Rhodes in action. He proved that this was an art form in its own right. That it could be a calling. That it could change matches just the way a great bowling spell or a great innings could do.
As shorter formats of the game became popular, fielding grew to be more important. And, as modern athleticism and fitness training seeped into cricket (it was one of the last major team sports in the world to embrace elite athletic training), great fielders became more common.
The 2024 T20 World Cup, for instance, was packed with fantastic fielding efforts.
Think of Suryakumar Yadav running full tilt and palming a ball — surely meant for a six! — as it flew over the boundary rope, slapping it back into the playing field, hopping across the rope himself after it, and completing a catch that handed India the Cup.
Great fielding demands the use of every skill that makes a great athlete:
* Anticipation: “The one attribute that makes anyone a better fielder is expecting every ball to come to you,” Rhodes once said in an interview. “Commentators back then used to talk about my good ‘anticipation’ while playing. I didn’t have faster reflexes than the others. It wasn’t a case of me seeing the ball earlier. I just expected each game to come to me. I was ready before the ball was hit.”
* Focus: A good fielder keeps their eye on the ball from the time it leaves the bowler until it’s in a fielder’s hand. “The more cues you can get before the batsman hits the ball, the better - whether it’s the shape of the shot or whatever,” former England cricketer Paul Collingwood, another “superman” fielder, once said.
* Timing and reflexes, which also call for elasticity, agility and power: How fast does one need to move? How high does one need to jump? Exactly when should one stick one’s hand out so as to latch on to the ball and then leap, dive, roll, reach or throw?
“The best fielders in the world are the ones who’ve got quick feet, who are very strong in the thighs, and who pick the ball up and shift their alignment with the hips,” Collingwood once said.
No wonder Phillips, who was a gymnast as a boy, is so good at it. It will be a pleasure to see him in action, playing for the Gujarat Titans, in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL).
(To reach Rudraneil Sengupta with feedback, email rudraneil@gmail.com)
