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India's star batter Virat Kohli is one of the most athletic fielders in world cricket. Kohli covers a lot of ground when he fields in the outfield and often comes up with lightning fast throws. During a fielding session designed by fielding coach T Dilip on November 19 at Optus Stadium, Perth, Kohli refused to go easy on a teammate.
As the grounds are larger in size in Australia, Dilip conducted drills for relay throws. In the video posted on bcci.tv, a player requested saying, "thoda easy rakh lo (keep it as tad easy)" to which he responded, "Kyu karein? Aur kam maaro udhar".
Dilip made two teams to get the players involved. The players cheered for each other as they hit the stumps.
"The drill is very simple. Whoever throws first will be getting one point. What we wanted to do today was want everyone to get together and closer to the match in terms of what we wanted. So that is why today's team drill was more related to retrieving where a fielder at the boundary throws the ball to the in-fielder. So instead of one long throw, we wanted to have two flat throws," Dilip said while speaking to BCCI.tv.
"We put that into practice so that players know whether to stand towards the left or right so that they are in a proper position and not wasting time in turn. So players on the boundary are also aware that another person is waiting for it so that they can throw the ball in one bounce into the hands."
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Dilip stopped few players from going hard
At the end of the fielding session, Dilip was happy by the way players responded. He also revealed that he had to stop a few players from pushing too hard and risk getting injured.
“You can see that I’m very happy. God, I would say that the players have really put the intensity up there.
“When they come into the skills, today, boy, you see that, whether it is slip catching, outfield catching or running back, you could see that players were really up to it. And literally, I had to stop certain people from going for it. But I’m very happy with the way players have responded gradually. And today was outstanding and a proper finish to the effort, that we have put in the last few days," Dilip concluded.
