Team India's fielding is under questionImage Credit source: PTI

Just before the T20 World Cup 2026, Team India started its preparations in a vigorous manner. These days, Team India is playing a T20 series against New Zealand as a practice for the World Cup. In the very first match of the series played in Nagpur, the Indian team had defeated the Kiwi team without any problem. The batting was absolutely tremendous and the bowling was also amazing. Now, similar performance will be expected from Suryakumar Yadav's team in the second match in Raipur also. But even after winning the first match, a shortcoming was visible, which could prove costly in Raipur, in this series and again in the T20 World Cup. This is the fielding of the Indian team.

In the first T20 match played in Nagpur team india Had made a big score of 238 runs. After this, the bowlers restricted New Zealand to 190 runs and won by 48 runs. But the margin of victory could have been bigger or the result of the match could have been different because New Zealand's explosive batsmen Glenn Phillips and Mark Chapman were proving to be a big problem for Team India. Especially Phillips, who was scoring huge runs and could single-handedly turn the match.

Be it caught or run out, fielders failed

If this had happened, it would have been due to the poor fielding of Team India along with Phillips. The Indian team dropped 3 catches in this match and missed two run out chances. Out of these, only Phillips got one life sentence. Sanju Samson surprised the Kiwi batsman by missing such an easy chance to run him out. Phillips was only on 41 runs at that time. Phillips was finally out after scoring 78 runs. In the very next over, Rinku Singh took an easy catch of Mark Chapman, who was on only 16 runs at that time. He played an inning of 37 runs.

Apart from these, Team India had left the chance of run out in the beginning also. In the third over, Ishan Kishan could not hit the stumps accurately, due to which Tim Robinson was saved from getting out. In the last part of the innings, only Darryl Mitchell got life twice. First of all, in the 16th over, Abhishek Sharma took a direct catch of Mitchell. Then he was only on 4 runs. Then in the 19th over, Ishan Kishan also made the mistake of dropping the catch of the same batsman. However, by then the match was out of New Zealand's reach, but wasting two chances to dismiss this in-form batsman was a big mistake.

Alarm bells before the World Cup

Apart from this, scenes of some misfields were also seen. This problem of fielding was not only in this match, but in the last ODI series against New Zealand also, the Indian team looked weak on this front and had to suffer the consequences of this by losing the series. Now the T20 World Cup is not far away and in such a situation, all eyes are on fielding coach T. Dilip. If he is not able to overcome this weakness of the team before the tournament, then the Indian team, which is looking like the strongest contender to win the title at home, may have to lose the trophy.