Catching in focus as Women's T20 World Cup enters the ring of fire

Megan Schutt, Lea Tahuhu and Fran Jonas in the recent T20Is in Australia, Laura Wolvaardt in the recent T20Is in Multan. S Sajana at short third in the opening game of WPL 2024. Karishma Ramharack at midwicket in the WCPL 2024 opener.

Young or experienced, in the 30-yard circle or in the deep, and in any part of the world, the common thread that binds all these names is that all of them put down fairly straightforward catches that went high into the night sky when the floodlights were on. And all these players - picked randomly from a large sample size - will feature in the Women's T20 World Cup starting October 3.

The lights are going to be flicked on in the UAE for that tournament, in which 13 of the 20 league games will start at 6pm local time, and if we include the three knockout games also slotted for 6pm, it will be 16 games out of 23, nearly 70%, to be played entirely under lights. The challenge is that if your eyes aren't used to following the white ball against the night sky with the lights blinding your vision at times, you won't be very well equipped to track the ball going up or coming down.

And even though more and more women's T20s are being played under lights these days, day-night and night games are less common than in the men's game. Since the start of 2021 (games for which ESPNcricinfo has data), close to 41% (2046 out of 5019) of men's T20s have been played partially or completely under lights (day-night or night games) but the corresponding number for women's T20s is just 18% (319 out of 1779). On average, just one out of five women's T20s have used floodlights in this period.

The encouraging sign is that over 51% (54 of 105) of women's T20Is between Full Member teams since the last Women's T20 World Cup (in 2023) have been day-night or night games, which is close to the men's figure of 57.5% (80 of 139). But the discouraging figure is that since the start of 2021, women have dropped more catches (25.2%) compared to men (17.75%), with similar numbers even in T20 internationals.

Hayley Matthews, the West Indies captain and two-time WCPL champion for Barbados Royals, had said in August that the first few games of this year's WCPL (all played under lights) saw "quite a bit [of] dropped catches from all the teams" because "we haven't played under lights in a really long time." When a fair few such chances slipped through in India's Women's Premier League (WPL) this year, UP Warriorz coach Jon Lewis, who also coaches England Women, had said even though it was primarily the Indian domestic players responsible for the fielding lapses, it was "a little bit of lack of experience for a lot of players especially under the lights."

A lot of the players - domestic or international - were also not used to the grounds they were playing at in Delhi and Bengaluru in the WPL, and unfamiliar with the dimensions and the deep pockets. "Understanding the angles" takes you some time to get used to as well, as former India quick and Mumbai Indians bowling coach and mentor Jhulan Goswami said.

Unfamiliarity with the grounds in the UAE for the T20 World Cup could be another obstacle for at least half of the ten participating teams because Australia, India, England and West Indies have never played T20Is in that country, and the last T20Is played by South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan there were at least seven years ago.

Throw in balls going high off top-edges with the floodlights on, and it won't be easy.

"I think whether women or men, if you're playing under lights, it is a completely different story altogether, only because the background from which the ball comes is different," Malolan Rangarajan, part of the RCB coaching staff in the IPL and WPL, and head coach of St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the CPL, tells ESPNcricinfo. "When you're talking about catches being dropped, there's something called depth perception. When the sky is blue or white, the depth perception is completely different to when the sky is dark and black.

"Even though the ball is in contrast to the colour of the sky, the most important thing for a fielder to understand is how high the ball is and at what speed it is coming down [at]. Since it is a darker colour [at night], one needs to get used to it. And once you get used to it…I am not saying it is more difficult or easier. A few fielders might say they find catching the ball easier under lights and a few of them might say it's difficult."

While teams like Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa played their most recent T20Is under lights and a lot of West Indies players got similar game time during the WCPL, the India squad didn't hold even one training session under lights in their month-long preparation before the T20 World Cup, and they jumped straight into the warm-up games in Dubai starting at 6pm.

The other challenge in this tournament is the unique design of lights at the Dubai International Stadium. As can be seen above, the ground doesn't have floodlight poles but a lights all around the edge of the roof, commonly known as the "ring of fire". Is catching going to be tougher here then?

"Only for the high catches because there they have a circular ring of light," former India Women fielding coach Biju George, currently with Delhi Capitals in the IPL and WPL, tells ESPNcricinfo. "So it's very difficult to pick the ball. If you have four, five or six floodlights, there are spaces where you are not hindered by the light but in Dubai at every angle, at any point of time, the ball is going to disappear in that space. So your judgment should be spot on."

The flip side, however, is that the ring of fire may not blind you as severely as the conventional floodlights in Sharjah, where the contrast of the block of lights against the dark sky might be starker because it's a more open stadium.

"Fielding under four or six poles of lights is completely different to this ring of fire, as they like to call it," Rangarajan says. "If you ask me personally, it is easier to still catch the ball when there is a ring of fire, as opposed to when you have one pole with about 20-30 lights and once the ball goes in that [area] it is almost impossible [to catch]. No matter how experienced you are, those few milliseconds or seconds when the ball goes inside, when it's a pole [of floodlights], it is much more difficult.

"Everything will have a downside, but I think, holistically speaking, the lights which are like Dubai Stadium comparatively will be easier for catching high balls, 100%. This is a point only because it is unusual to have lights like that, and that's why people find it difficult because they're not used to it. But it doesn't blind your eye."

The teams at the T20 World Cup won't be entirely thrown into the unknown. They have all played two warm-up games each before the main tournament, all starting at 6pm, to get used to to the conditions at night. But it may not be enough because the venues for the main matches are Sharjah and the Dubai International Stadium whereas the warm-ups were at the two Academy grounds and the multi-sport Sevens Stadium in Dubai.

According to George, who was with DC during the IPL in 2020 and 2021 in the UAE, there are still ways to plan around the ring of fire, by identifying your best fielders, the best positions for them, and the pockets the top opposition batters are likely to target.

"First thing is you have to find out who your inner-circle fielders are, who your outer fielders are," he says. "And second, you have to find out, for every team as an opposition team captain or coach, where the batters' hotspots are, where they tend to get their runs, where they tend to get out. So I make sure that the best catchers are there."

Former wicketkeeper Katey Martin, who played three ODI and six T20 World Cups for New Zealand and now does commentary around the world, believes you have to tweak your training methods when there are such unknowns with respect to fielding while on tour.

"To be honest, a lot of it's actually out of your control," she said of playing at new grounds. "So it really is just making the most of those [training] opportunities when you do get to train under lights to do a lot of fielding practice. So sometimes you might end up doing more fielding practice than you would do skills because it's just the effect of being able to get used to the conditions and teams will turn up to grounds and they'll have the coaches just literally go around in a circle and then players are on the boundaries. They just take catches in different pockets, just as people get used to it and then obviously cover catches and close [catches].

"For me, fielding is all about attitude. So if you've got the right attitude, you're switched on and you have a good understanding of what's happening in the game, I think you can anticipate."

With plenty of training hours under their belt thanks to recent games or preparatory camps, all ten teams will hope they have the best tools and plans in place. And if they have the attitude of the kind South Africa's 18-year-old Seshnie Naidu showed with a wonder grab on her T20I debut in Multan not long after being picked in the World Cup squad, we may not see that many chances going down.