Many men in the slip cordon - fielding records

An analysis of slip fielding in men's Test cricket around the world

My previous post focused on Indian slip fielding and delved into the catches taken/dropped by pace and spin. A few notes about the previous article. I am aware of the fantastic article on Cricket Monthly by Charles Davis – it is comprehensive as any piece on close-in fielding in Tests can be. My article though focuses only on slip fielding in particular – slips are one of the few specialist areas in fielding for which Test teams develop players. Second point - a vital part of the catches taken-dropped ratio in my previous post was to look at the opportunities presented to the fielders which would have lent credence to a higher ratio of catches caught-dropped by a particular player. This article will focus on opportunities presented to slip fielders and then looking at catches to dropped percentage, a measure I believe might do justice to a higher percentage of catches caught/dropped for a player. The third key note about this post - I decided to do it for all teams in Tests since it might be a bit interesting to see which teams really do fare well in the cordon and if teams do have fixed specialist players for specialist positions. 

The methodology remained the same – I scrolled through ball-by-ball commentaries of every innings in Tests from 2012 until now for each team on ESPNCricinfo and thus created a master list of all catches caught/dropped/missed in slips for all teams. From then on, it was simpler to sift through the data and identify percentages for each team and each fielder. Another note – the ball-by-ball commentaries were incomplete in a few instances – missing commentary due to technical glitches/not mentioning the player name/not mentioning the position. In those cases, assumptions were made to either arrive at the positions based on the fielder or the fielder names based on the position from historical data. An assumption from my previous post holds good here too - BBB commentary is subjective; different commentators on the website would have interpreted the chances in the slips differently. A safe assumption that a majority of slip catches have been classified and described accurately or nearly accurately should hold good.

In this post, we will look at the best slip cordons for pace and spin, as well as identify best fielders for each position in the cordon – for both spin and pace – and while we are at it, why not look at the best slip fielders currently? For the sake of simplicity and in an effort to keep this post shorter, I have focused on first, second, third slip and the gully for pace bowling, and just the first slip for spin. On an unrelated note, when isn't this picture not funny when you look at Root's expression? 

Courtesy: Getty Images

We will start with a few basic numbers – 233 tests have been played from Jan 1^st, 2012 until now (up until the first Test between West Indies and Pakistan) – and the number of tests played by each team is quite disproportionate. Except Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, all teams have played 45+ tests, with England and Australia having played 68 and 63 tests respectively. We could start by looking at the number of opportunities created by each team and arrive at a proportionate number for each team depending on the numbers of tests played over the 5+ years period. In this regard, England rank high - creating roughly 5.1 opportunities per game, while New Zealand and South Africa have created close to 4.58 per Test.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Total opportunities for pace and spin:

Now to deep-dive into the numbers – which teams have a really good catching rate at the cordon? Are a few teams still struggling to find the right combination of men in the cordon for pace/spin? Let us look at the overall numbers first – I have arranged the numbers in order of opportunities:

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Given the numbers and the relatively high number of opportunities, New Zealand seems to be the best slip fielding team, marginally ahead of South Africa and Australia. Only Bangladesh, India and West Indies feature in the lower 60s – West Indies lost one of its best slip catchers (Darren Bravo) owing to a war of words, Bangladesh has struggled to find a regular who can be dependable in slips and India’s slip cordon for pace keeps shuffling too often to identify anyone dependable.

Let us dissect the chances a bit more – how do slip cordons fare when you consider pace bowling? Or military medium or even someone with the pace of a Rajat Bhatia?

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

England’s slip catching to pace is similar to its overall showing for pace and spin; New Zealand are the best of the teams with opportunities being taken 80% of the time. Australia and South Africa lag slightly behind even though they have created equal or close to equal number of opportunities. For a team creating at least 100 opportunities with pace bowling, India’s catch rate is the least with only 55% of catches being taken. Even with slightly lower number of opportunities, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Pakistan hover in 65-70% range. This can further be dissected by each position in the cordon but let us look at slip catching for spin.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Slip catching to spin seems to be largely an almost equal showing by the teams with more than 60 opportunities barring West Indies. Pakistan features high in slip fielding to spin, owing to the mostly-sure hands of Younis Khan. Rahane for India, Steven Smith for Australia and Mathews for Sri Lanka have fared very well in this area, leading to a higher catching percentage for spin bowling for their respective teams.

All the representations until now have assumed catches caught as regulation ones while drops have not been classified into easy chances or tough ones. For the sake of this section alone, let us look at the proportion of easy catches/great catches/regulation drops/tough chances.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

New Zealand, South Africa and Australia have caught a number of really good catches, more than others, as is evident from these charts. Even though the number of chances created by Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are lesser, close to 15% of all their opportunities have been tough chances.

Year-by-year analysis of slip fielding for pace and spin bowling:

A year-by-year improvement for slip fielding to pace and spin would give a better idea of how team performances in the cordon have improved or dipped. A dip to 0 might either represent zero number of opportunities or zero chances being converted to catches, from very few opportunities.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Very few teams seem to have sustained the quality of slip fielding to pace as New Zealand have had over the past five years, with a catching rate constantly above 75%. South Africa have also been consistent, barring 2015 when the percentage  went below 70 before resurfacing again to keep closer to 75.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Australia’s and New Zealand’s performance are the lines that grow assuredly in this chart – in particular, owing to Steven Smith and Ross Taylor’s outstanding slip catching but more on them later. South Africa dipped briefly before Amla took over first slip duties and brought consistency to the catching. From the lows of 2014, India’s rise has been due to the emergence of Rahane as one of the best slip fielders to spin currently. 2015 was a landmark year for him in slips, and that translated directly to India’s performance in this chart. Following Mahela’s retirement, Sri Lanka briefly struggled before Mathews made a mark in this position. To understand the importance of role of specialist slip fielders in teams, I have charted out performance of teams by position and top fielders for each position – a minimum number of 10 opportunities was used to look at the top fielders for first/second/third slips to pace and first slip to spin, and 5 opportunities for fielders in the gully region for pace to be represented in the charts. Let us look at slip fielding to pace first and move onto spin.

Slip fielding by position - pace bowling:

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

South Africa leads this chart, with 82% of chances being converted to catches primarily because of stellar catching by Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla who have caught 54 of 66 total chances. New Zealand ranks high at 79% since the primary slip fielder has been Ross Taylor on most occasions and having caught 40 catches from 50 opportunities. Australia has had decent success in this position but with the retirement of Michael Clarke and Shane Watson (28 out of 34 chances combined), it has struggled to find a consistent first slip fielder. England languishes in the low 70s – Strauss and Cook have held on to that fort constantly but have caught only 63 out of 88 chances. Although both are good slip fielders, Cook has dropped more catches over the past two years than before. Sri Lanka and West Indies feature in the low 70s as well – Sri Lanka face a similar problem to Australia, merely in terms of finding one slip fielder who can catch well. West Indies had Darren Bravo who caught 12 out of 16 chances but going by the current scenario, it does not seem likely that he will be back in the team. India’s predicament is no surprise with Murali Vijay having caught only 55% of the time. Pakistan has tried numerous fielders in the absence of Mohammad Hafeez (who is an average first slip fielder himself with 5 catches out of 8 chances), but none have stuck. It would be fair to say that the hunt is on for teams other than South Africa, New Zealand and maybe England if Cook doesn’t improve his catching. Let us take a few more paces to move on to second slip now.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Second slip catching standards seem almost the same as compared to first slip – among teams with at least 50 opportunities, Australia is on top with 78%. Steven Smith has been exemplary in this position, having caught 28 out of 34 chances. South Africa and New Zealand lag behind in the 70-75% range. Kallis was quite a handful, having caught 17 out of the 20 chances and following him, de Villiers, du Plessis, Alviro Petersen and Dean Elgar have caught 43 out of the 57 opportunities presented. New Zealand have had fair success although it is a tale of two parts with similar results – Martin Guptill took 21 out of 29 chances in the second slip but in between his absences or after, Mark Craig, Peter Fulton, Ross Taylor, Tim Southee and Jimmy Neesham have taken 25 from 29 chances. Currently, they seem to be trying Jeet Raval who took 6 out of 7 chances and then dropped 4 consecutively – the experiment may not last much longer if he drops more. England feature in the 60s again – Swann and Bell had caught 30 out of 47 chances before Swann’s exit and Ian Bell’s sacking gave rise to a number of fielders tried out but with marginal success. West Indies has a higher conversion rate, albeit with fewer chances – Darren Sammy, Kraigg Brathwaite and for a brief while, Darren Bravo caught 19 of the 23 opportunities. Pakistan has had one slip fielder for second slip – Younis Khan who has caught 19 from 25 chances. Sri Lanka is still trying to find an able slip fielder following the retirement of Mahela Jayawardene.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

South Africa and New Zealand have been extremely consistent in the third slip - Faf du Plessis. JP Duminy, Dean Elgar and Alviro Petersen have taken 22 catches out of 23 opportunities. New Zealand have done exceedingly well too, with Dean Brownlie, Jimmy Neesham, Corey Anderson and Tim Southee (9/11) having taken 26 out of 29 chances. England have struggled to find a good slip fielder for this spot – Joe Root caught 10 out of 15 chances from 2013-2015 before he moved to second slip, and the ones after/during 2015 (James Anderson, Gary Ballance, Chris Jordan, Ben Stokes and James Vince) have caught only 5 of the 9 chances that came their way. Australia has tried Mitch Marsh, Steven Smith, David Warner, and in one instance, even Nathan Lyon, to tighten up their third slip catching but apart from  Usman Khawaja (4 out of 5 chances), the catching has largely been below average. India has an even 50% in this spot, the players tried out being Shikhar Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, and Virat Kohli – all four whose catching has been inconsistent. Pakistan seems to have found a reliable close-in fielder in Azhar Ali who has taken 5 out of 6 chances at third slip. Which leaves one more position – the gully region.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Gully, like third slip, has had fewer opportunities than the first or second slips. New Zealand’s high catching rate, at 92%, can be directly attributed to Kane Williamson’s fantastic catching in this spot – he has caught 27 out of 29 chances here. Australia has a high percentage too, with Lyon, the Marsh brothers and David Warner having taken 16 catches combined from 22 opportunities. England features high in this list for a change – partly due to Joe Root who took all 8 out of 8 catches from 2013-14. Others in the England team have been quite successful – James Anderson, Jos Buttler, Alex Hales and Ben Stokes have taken 8 out of the 10 chances from 2014-16. With the growing realization of Ben Stokes’ outstanding catching abilities including ones that demand quick reflex times, he will feature in important positions in the cordon, even if not in the gully region. India’s performance has not been spectacular but Rahane has offered slight relief having taken 7 out of 10 chances. Surprisingly, South Africa have one of the lowest percentages among teams with relatively high number of opportunities – JP Duminy has taken 6 out of 10 chances although other players tried have not had a great record.

Slip fielding by position - spin bowling:

Now that we have looked at slip fielding to pace, let us look at first slip to spin. It throws up more fielders and a few more constants.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

First slip catching to spin has shown varying qualities across teams. Pakistan, for instance, has been lucky to have the inimitable Younis Khan, who has taken 26 catches out of 34 opportunities (at the time of writing this post, he caught 2 or 3 more in the second test against West Indies). Australia has Steven Smith who, like Kane Williamson at gully to pace, has taken 25 out of 27 chances at first slip to spin. India’s story is much familiar – Rahane has taken 34 out of 43 opportunities. West Indies have had a good showing of 75%, although the men that have helped it happen – Darren Sammy who took an unbelievable 13 out of 13 chances and Darren Bravo who took 6 out of 8 chances – are both out of contention for their sides. Jermaine Blackwood has been tried but has taken only 8 out of his 13 opportunities. South Africa have had Dean Elgar and Kallis before; combined, they took 9 out of 11 chances before Amla took over the role and has an impressive 11 catches from 13 chances.  Sri Lanka has had average success – Mathews has 27 out of 37 chances after Mahela had taken 13 catches out of 22 opportunities. Arguably, Mahela’s slip catching form dropped considerably towards the end of his career. Bangladesh have used Mahmudullah, Nasir Hossain, Shakib Al Hasan, and Soumya Sarkar who have taken 19 out of 24 opportunities thus lending to a high 81% at first slip. A note about England’s Chris Jordan who has an astonishing 8 out of 8 chances – his non-selection by the team has led England to pitch Stokes in that position. Anderson, Cook, Ben Stokes, Root and Adam Lyth have a combined 14 out of 20 opportunities – which seems to be just about average for the overall figure of 72%.

Top slip fielders - by pace and spin:

Now that we have seen by position, it would do well to look at top fielders for pace and spin over the past five years. A few names feature prominently in this list. Understandably, the list is long for pace owing to the greater number of positions. To add some credence to a higher catching rate, I limited the number of opportunities for pace and spin to 20 each.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

A few slip catchers for pace stand out when you look at this chart – Ross Taylor, Graeme Smith, Kallis and Michael Clarke feature in the high 80s range. Their slip catching record had been such that until the end of their careers, they were not, or in the case of Ross Taylor still hasn’t been, displaced from their positions. Kane Williamson has been a fabulous catcher in the cordon for New Zealand and might end up as one of their best catchers in history. For players with a relatively higher number of opportunities, we have quite a few notable fielders with catching percentages in the 70s. Steven Smith - who has grown as a catcher just as he has with his batting, Joe Root – who has spilled a few but still remains one of the better catchers in his team, Alastair Cook – a slip fielder who has slightly waned over the past couple of years, Younis Khan – who has been very consistent throughout his career, Martin Guptill who has even 75% with his catching, Darren Bravo with 74%, and Dean Elgar at 72% -  who has been very good at third slip. Among current players, only Amla features in the 60s. Shikhar Dhawan and Dimuth Karunatne have the lowest catching record to pace for the period considered – at 55% and 57% respectively.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Out of slip catchers to spin, Darren Sammy stands out with a 100% conversion rate. Of the current set of players, Steven Smith is way ahead of the pack at 92% - the next best is 77% by Rahane. Younis Khan again makes a case for being one of the safest slip catchers to spin with a rate of 77%, while Mathews has just above 70%. It is indeed surprising to note that all the other fielders have catching percentages of less than 65%, excepting Sehwag. Ross Taylor has largely done well for his team at slip, although a below-average performance in an away series in 2013 resulted in sub-65 catching rate.

To cap this all, I charted out the top slip fielders to pace and spin with a minimum number of 45 opportunities combined.

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

The clear leader here is Steven Smith - with almost an equal number of opportunities as Cook or Ross Taylor, Steven Smith has an outstanding catching rate of 80%. The next best is 78% by Younis Khan and with his retirement after the current test series against West Indies, Pakistan would do well if they find an equal replacement to the man. Joe Root and Ajinkya Rahane are slowly but steadily catching up in the race to be the best slip fielders in men’s cricket currently. Michael Clarke was a fairly good slip fielder as well, as is evident from the 75% catching rate. Cook would do well to improve his rate from 70% currently to more than 75% while James Anderson has the lowest among them all at 58%. The chart above pits them all almost equally, with the exception of Steven Smith, Alastair Cook and James Anderson. Let us look at one final chart in this post – how many of the catches taken by these fielders were very good ones, and how many of them were tough chances?

Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

With this chart, we can see that Michael Clarke and Ross Taylor are separated by very little – Clarke has a number of really good catches, a shade higher than Ross Taylor while the latter has had more tough chances than Clarke. Younis Khan’s chart shows a better picture – although he dropped almost 21% of his catches, at least 8% of them were tough ones. And while Joe Root and Rahane have equal catching rates, Root has taken a higher proportion of great catches, which should place him slightly higher than Rahane. Cook has been just about average – he has dropped 25% of his catches overall, even excluding the tough chances. James Anderson has had it a bit tough – even though he has caught only 59% of all catches, with 6% being very good ones, he has had to deal with 18% of tough chances, which overall doesn’t make him to be as bad a slip fielder as was shown in the previous chart. The pick of the lot is, without a doubt, Steven Smith – he has caught 80% of all his chances, with close to 15% of them being great takes. He has dropped only 16% of normal chances – which is among the lowest when compared with the other slip fielders in this chart. He is the best slip fielder in men’s cricket currently but you knew that already, didn’t you?

Note: The above post contains stats and analyses up to the first Test between West Indies and Pakistan which concluded on April 25, 2017.

Edit (14/5/2017): The post has been edited to show trend lines for year-on-year performance of slip fielding to pace and spin as two separate charts each for pace and spin.

Edit 2 (14/5/2017): The second chart for year-on-year performance for spin had incorrectly mentioned "Pakistan" twice in the legend. The error has been rectified.

I tweet (occasionally) @ rightarmchuck

India’s slip cordon – by the numbers

An analysis of India's slip fielding

An important series. First test. Day one. two catches dropped in the slips within the first hour. Cricket has seemingly become better with bigger scores, and better fielding abilities. However, if there is one thing in cricket that hasn’t quite been as good as it was before, it is slip fielding. In particular, India’s slip fielding over the past few years has dipped considerably, considering the standards set by Dravid, Sehwag and Tendulkar. Rahane has been exceptional in the cordon and Rohit has been good too. In this piece, I attempt to look at India’s slip catching in tests over the past 5 years by the numbers – catches taken, catches dropped, and who amongst the players tried out in the slip cordon is the best - in addition to making an attempt at understanding the positions of the players in the cordon.

Before I get in to the numbers, I will give you a brief explanation about the simple methodology – I looked at the tests India played over the past five years. At the time of starting to accumulate data for this article, the first test in this period was Test # 2027 in 2012 - against Australia in Australia in what was the second test of the series. I trawled through ESPN Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary to take note of India’s dropped catches in addition to logging in data about catches taken in the slips. The commentary on the website is straightforward enough when describing such opportunities – words such as “dropped” and “chance” are used. A note to add – I understand that the BBB commentary is subjective; different commentators on the website would have interpreted the chances in the slips differently. It is indeed vital to take this into account; however, only nine of the total number of dropped chances had been classified as “tough” chances. A safe assumption that a majority of slip catches have been classified and described accurately or nearly accurately should hold good.

Picture courtesy: Yahoo Cricket

Over the period of last five years, India played 46 test matches – 22 at home and 24 away. Out of these 46 matches, it won 22, lost 13 and drew 11 (Source: ESPNCricinfo). The win-loss ratio isn’t good enough and there are a multitude of factors to account for when a team loses – the toss, the batting and the bowling performances of the teams, and equally important being the fielding.

Slip catching has been India’s bugbear once they started losing able slip fielders in the form of Sehwag and the like. In these 46 matches, the Indian slip cordon has caught 126 of them and dropped 64 of them. The numbers indicate that the cordon dropped a catch for every two catches they caught which, by itself, is quite a telling statistic. Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

The number of catches dropped in away test matches is 35, as compared to 29 in home tests –without doubt, chances in away tests are always more crucial. The charts also show that Indian slip fielders have spilt more catches off seamers than the spinners – 40, compared to 24 off the latter.
While there are more opportunities for catches off seamers – the areas covered by the slip cordon for a seamer as opposed to a spinner are larger hence producing more opportunities for a catch to be taken or dropped, the number of chances dropped off seamers is indeed slightly high. It is also interesting to note that the number of catches dropped increases after the retirements of Dravid, Sachin and Laxman, and the axing of Sehwag.
The chart below shows bowlers off whose bowling the catches have been dropped. Of all these bowlers, catches have been dropped off Shami’s bowling the maximum, accounting for 17% of all chances. Next in line is Ashwin, who has 11% - but the slips for the spin department represent no major threat now as I will illustrate later in the article.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Dropped catches by over of the day:

Is it possible that Indians tend to drop catches later during the day when it seems too long? Maybe it could be a case of lapses in concentration – the ability to switch on and off has often been talked about to work perfectly for Dravid and other excellent slip fielders. A chart of when the slip fielders have dropped the catches indicates no correlation as to the assumption of the fielders dropping catches later in the day.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Dropped catches by innings of the match: 

Dropping catches change the momentum of a match sometimes, or a series, and can even change a player’s career. A few fans will always remember Jadeja dropping Cook in the third test against England when India was 1-0 up in the series. That drop made a difference in that match, the series (which England went on to win 3-1) and Cook’s career when he had gone 11 innings without a fifty.
There are several other instances when the catches have been dropped at crucial junctures. It would be difficult to exactly quantify how much each drop meant – we can probably look at the differences between how much the batsman had scored until then and his final score. It is possible to see when these catches have been dropped, how the match was poised then, and observe if India was ahead, level or behind in the series.
The following four tables show catches dropped in each innings of a test match, along with the factors indicated above. The rows shaded in grey indicate, in my opinion, crucial points in a test match when chances have gone begging. I am sure there would be keen observers who could point to other match situations in this list which were crucial. Notice that a few of the catches dropped in the first innings come within the first hour of play (assuming an average over rate of 12 per hour); underlining even more the number of chances early in the day and the importance of taking them.

First innings:

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

  

Second innings:

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Third innings:

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

 Fourth innings:

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Slip catches taken by India:

It would be unfair if I did not point out the number of catches taken in the slip cordon in the same period, seeing that there are a couple of players in the slip cordon who stand out. The stacked column in the following chart for home games in 2015 is exceptionally tall, in part due to the matches played on pitches which assisted spin, and in part due to the emergence of Rahane as an able slip fielder to spin.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Ratio of slip catches taken to slip catches dropped:

An even better indicator, though simplistic, would be the ratio of catches taken to catches dropped by the team over the period concerned. A higher ratio would, naturally, indicate a good showing in the cordon. The charts below show the comparison of this ratio – the ratio for pace bowling in 2014 is almost a factor of 2 – following the exit of a slip cordon, the newer slip cordon struggled in their catching. Playing away from home didn’t help too, with a lot of catching opportunities in England, New Zealand and Australia coming off pace bowling mainly.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

The chart above shows why Rahane has been quite brilliant for a slip fielder to spin. He has taken 27 catches to spin and dropped just 8 of them and that, even by normal standards, has been exceptional. He has evolved to be a dependable first slip option to Ashwin and Jadeja. Fun fact: of the 28 catches taken by spin in 2015, Rahane claimed 19 of them – close to 70%.

Ratio of slip catches taken to slip catches dropped - by player:

Another exercise would be to chart a ratio of catches taken to catches dropped for each player in this generation and understand why Rahane is so important in the slip cordon for India.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

The average ratio for the current crop of players stands at 1.8. Considering the standard set of fielders in the slip cordon as was observed in the ongoing series against England, Vijay and Kohli are at 1.56 and 1.5 respectively. Jadeja received a lot of flak for dropping Cook in the 2014 series and more recently in the first test; his ratio is at 1.5 as well. Rahane’s ratio is 3.27 – way above his slip partners. It is also important to mention Rohit Sharma, who has featured in the slip cordon often. He has caught 9 in the cordon off seamers, and has dropped none.

Rotation of slip fielders in the cordon:

Nasser, one of the best commentators in the game currently, made a pertinent point about developing a set of players to stand in the slip cordon and nurture them. While Rahane does stand at first slip for the spinners, he is often found in the gully region for the seamers.
To be fair, India has tried out quite a number of players in the slip cordon for the seamers and it appears as though it is trying to find the right combination. It must also be said luck has not favored them as well. Players such as Dhawan, Rohit and KL Rahul have missed out games owing to injuries or inconsistency.
The fielders have been moved around a lot in the cordon – maybe an attempt at finding who fits where best. Vijay, Kohli and Jadeja were at 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd slips respectively in the first test against England while Rahane was at gully. If either Rohit or Dhawan make a return to the side, it is possible that the player will either be slotted in the first or third slip position. Or it might prompt another upheaval of sorts in the slips with Dhawan back to his second slip spot, Vijay staying at first and Kohli moving to third. In any case, I am sure both Kohli and the team management have realized a set of specialist fielders are necessary for the slip cordon, and that a good fielder in the outfield does not necessarily translate to a good slip fielder.
I attempted to understand fielders and their positions in the slips in the 5-year period. Since no website, to my knowledge, looks at recording the positions of various fielders on the field, the following diagram was created using information from the BBB commentary – either through the catches dropped/catches taken/a rare mention of who was standing where in the cordon. The shaded cells show where the dropped catches occurred with the corresponding player name in the cell. There were a few instances where players were shifted from one slip to another within the same game as well as instances where players in the shaded cell went on to take a catch or two in the same innings.
The following diagram is left open to interpretation – I have tried to see which primary slip fielder moved where. In my view, Kohli, Vijay, Dhawan, Rohit and Rahane are the go-to slip fielders available currently. Five players and four positions in the cordon – based on availability, it is possible to find the best combination and slot them in their respective places.
Rahane might have to move in to slips if the team is unable to find someone suitable for those positions – going by his record in the slips for the spinners, it might be a solid gamble to go with him. He was tried in the second slip position to pace bowlers in 2014 but it must be remembered that he was still evolving as a slip fielder then. 2015 was a revelation of sorts for him – not to forget the world record of 8 catches in an innings. It is also possible to counter this argument by insisting that Rahane is a slip fielder for the spinners alone and might not be suited for standing up to pacers – someone with technical expertise can probably explain why.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

The usage of fielders for spin is much more straightforward. Until his axing, Sehwag held fort at first slip. Vijay and Kohli were both identified and tried at first slip but the team finally hit gold with Rahane. He has good reflexes and seems to have the right temperament to stand in the slips.

Sources: ESPNCricinfo, Analysis

 For now, the slip cordon seems to be set on Vijay and Kohli. An inclusion of another regular at slip such as Dhawan or Rohit would make things interesting. The 4-test series against Australia might throw up some interesting scenarios for India to consider and decide who goes where in the slip cordon. Indian fans will have to hope that the cordon starts catching more and dropping less in future tests.

Note: The above article contains stats and analyses up to the third Test between India and England which concluded on November 29, 2016.

Edit: The above article was originally published on 12th December, 2016. The post was updated to include sources for the charts in the article, in addition to including sub-headings and a byline.

Stats courtesy of ESPNCricinfo

I tweet @ rightarmchuck