Our fielding standard is below average: Rajin

Rajin Saleh, former Bangladesh captain who worked as the fielding coach during the One-Day International and Twenty20 International series against Afghanistan said that the Bangladesh team’s standard of fielding is below average.

According to head coach Russel Domingo, Bangladesh have dropped nine catches in the last five matches and Rajin who were the fielding coach during those five matches also admitted that,

“On a scale of 10, I can give our fielders 4.5 to 5 which is below average. When we can take that to seven, I think we can claim that we are a better fielding side”, he told The Business Post on Sunday.

Rajin, a right-handed batsman who was regarded as a top fielder during his playing days and was picked as the 12th man in the inaugural Test for Bangladesh against India where he took the catches of Sachin Tendulkar and Murali Kartik as a substitute fielder.

It took Rajin three more years to make Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi where he proved his worth by handling the deadly pace attack formed by Shoaib Akhter, Umar Gul, and Shabbir Ahmed to score a patient half-century.

Nasum Ahmed, Afif Hossain, and Mohammad Naim, all the three cricketers who missed a catch in the second T20I are young cricketers and they are supposed to be good fielders.

Rajin thinks that sometimes overconfidence kills the moment, “Afif is a very fit cricketer, he runs like a Tiger in the field. But I really don’t know why he missed that catch. Maybe he was overconfident, maybe he lacked concentration” he told The Business Post.

“Nasum’s miss was unacceptable at any level. For Naim, if 50 more catches come to him, he might hold the ball but why he dropped that one I don’t know”.

“Maybe their problem is psychological, maybe they are not focused. But We need to improve the standard of catching and ground fielding in order to do well in international cricket”, said the recent past fielding coach.

Shane McDermott got the job of fielding coach till the end of November 2023, which means Rajin is no longer considered for the role.

He wants to grow more as a coach and grow beyond the tag of fielding coach, “I want to do coaching but I would like to do more. I was a batsman, worked as a batting coach for BPL teams also. I would like to stretch the horizons more where I can become more than just a fielding coach, I would like to work in other areas as well”, he said on Sunday.