Former India fielding coach R Sridhar had a lengthy tenure with the Indian team from 2014-2021 and he worked under several coaches including Duncan Fletcher, Ravi Shastri, and Anil Kumble. Now he has set the cricketing world alight with his memoir -‘COACHING BEYOND: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team’.
In the book, Sridhar has revealed various encounters with players and how they approached their fielding drills and writes that this generation of players seem to think of themselves as a "finished product" as fielders when they came into the Indian team and were a bit more reluctant to put in the hard work as compared to their predecessors.
He further notes that he got KL Rahul to field at silly point and short leg when he didn’t keep wickets but had a frustrating time with newbie Shubman Gill, who was reluctant to field those positions.
“In Ahmedabad, during the last Test against England in March 2021, things came to a boil with Shubman. I contemplated having a word with Ravi about it but held my horses and took him out for lunch instead," says Sridhar in the book, as per Hindustan Times.
"I told him, ‘You are considered the next big thing. People are looking at you from a leadership perspective. As a future leader, the one thing you should bring is inspiration. You should have a presence on the field and when you do something you must do it with intent. It is not just doing it for the sake of the team. Do it for yourself. Do it for your satisfaction, not because the captain wants you there. What you do there should be an inspiration for the whole team," he adds.
Gill recently showcased his catching prowess in ODIs in slips and took some excellent reflex catches in the Test series in Bangladesh while fielding at short-leg.
