Fielding is one area where we need to pull up our socks: Shardul

Shardul Thakur emphasizes the need for improved fielding after Mumbai's Ranji Trophy campaign, highlighting dropped catches as critical failures.

As Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy campaign ended on Monday, captain Shardul Thakur admitted that poor fielding let the team down in the crucial stages of the tournament.

“We have dropped the most number of catches in the season. That is an unwanted record for us. Fielding is one area where we need to pull up our socks,” Shardul said after his team went down to Karnataka by four wickets.

Chasing a target of 325, Karnataka fumbled initially before K.L. Rahul made the most of three reprieves and went on to score a century. “This total could have been defended. There were about five catches that we dropped. We dropped Rahul thrice, so it doesn’t help,” Shardul said, adding: “Dropping him at slips was one crucial juncture where the game would have turned our way.”

Making it clear that the youngsters should learn from the senior players and apply themselves better, Shardul said, “All the senior boys are applying themselves. Now it’s up to the youngsters who come in. They should learn from someone like Sarfaraz (Khan) and Siddhesh (Lad) about how to get those daddy hundreds. It’s same with bowling, where we need breakthroughs in crucial times. We need to change our attitude with fielding, because it (a sloppy show) is not acceptable at this level”.