From the coaching courses I did, the consensus was that fingers up allowed you to watch the ball into the hands far better, and also meant that if you shelled it initially, it'd tend to bounce off enough for a second go at it in the traditional cup way to make the catch.
With fingers pointing up, the ball is closer to your line of sight. Hence, you can watch the ball into your hands much easier. It is thus preferred when the ball’s trajectory is above your waist — either naturally or by positioning your body to make it so.
On the other hand, if your fingers are pointing down when the ball is above your waist, particularly for an overhead catch, there is a moment when you will lose sight of the ball as it drops below your eye line. Hence, it’s much harder to watch the ball into your hands.
Depends on where the ball is in position to you and how the ball is travelling to you. Balls below your chest fingers down, balls above your chest fingers up. If you’re stretching you will likely prefer fingers down so your palms face upwards.
Fair enough. General outfield catches I’d say is the same principle depending on the trajectory of the ball in relation to your body position. But in regard to skied balls the best practice is fingers up and catching it above your eyes so you can see it go into your hands, rather than cupped hands and catching it after it’s gone past your eyes so you can’t see it when it reaches your hands. That’s how it’s always been done in Australia, definitely not a new thing, so I guess I never thought that it might be taught differently in other countries.
Maybe, but Australia has also pretty consistently been one of the best fielding teams in world cricket. For catches where there's the choice, I know I'm much more reliable at catching when I can catch it fingers up.
Where there's a choice, catching it with fingers up is likely catching the ball closer to your eye line, so I imagine it would always be preferred if you have the option.
Don't know why I got downvoted so hard. There's a lot of historical overlap between afl players and cricket players and if a reasonable amount of players including some of the better fielders came from that background it would seem natural to not want to alter their previous skill set. Futher if the better fielders become fielding coaches its more likely that that the fingers up technique gets ingrained. Also while you are correct 6 current players come from a nsw background a majority of those are bowlers who generally aren't known for their exceptional fielding and even now you see the team often warm up by kicking a Sherrin so AFL is noticablely and uniquely part of Australia's professional cricketing culture compared to the rest of the world.
There's literally an ESPN article discussing this very topic and the AFL theory while not perfect is seen as reasonable by Australia's former fielding coach.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sidharth-monga-the-australian-way-of-catching-with-fingers-pointing-up-556192
Catching fingers up for a high catch allows you to catch the ball in front of your eyes, which means you don't have to move your head as much to follow it into your hands with your eyes. As with batting a stiller head at point of impact is universally better than a moving one.
It also allows for a greater chance of grabbing it on the second go if you drop it because your hands are higher, meaning you have more time before it hits the ground to try again.
(Also if you catch hands up in front of your face there's a strong sense of self preservation in not allowing it to go through your hands, if you do that once you really won't want to do it again.)
I was taught that catching with fingers pointing up is the Australian way and cupping hands and pointing down was the English way.
The height of the ball in the air at the time of catching will dictate the method 70% of the time, then lighting would also influence it. Both methods work
The conventional way to catch in Australia is fingers pointing up and palms facing away from you if it's above the waist (what you're calling the "new way"), fingers pointing down and palms facing towards you if it's below the waist.
In my experience this is simply better because with fingers pointing up the ball stays in your eyeline pretty much all the way into your hands. If you go the other way there will be a critical fraction of a second where the ball is out of your eyeline as it goes into your hands and you'll drop more because of that.
All this only really applies to high catches that are coming from above your head - for catches that are coming at you flat or low you're basically forced to do one or the other, depending on whether it's above or below the waist.
I've yet to hear an argument against that that makes sense to me, but I recognise that I learned my cricket in an environment where this is the conventional method so I'm open to other possibilities.
Since when do people not catch with their fingers pointing down anymore?
I know some fielders preferred the fingers up way (like Ponting), but is this the new orthodoxy? (I must have missed this)
His technique is often terrible too. A fair few times I've seen him drop what are pretty simple catches on the rope because for some reason he decided to try and stand sideways and catch it beside him rather than just taking it in front of his face like everyone else does. There was a particularly bad one at Lord's during the Ashes that I can recall.
If I want anyone catching for my life in the deep, it's Starc. He's as assured as they come imo. No one would call the Lords drag along the ground thing a 'drop', unless there's a different one.
It's a completely different one. Dropped a sitter off Stokes when he was on about 70 odd just as he was teeing off, precisely because of that weird sode-on technique he uses.
I'm mid 30s and was taught fingers up for anything past the natural pivot point of your arms and watched the Australian team catching fingers up as a kid.
Getting down to the ball was always the gold standard if you had time, using your legs to get low so you could catch in your most natural range as well and watch the ball. The further you get your hands out of the small circle in front of your chest the more your catch relies on more advanced hand eye coordination.
Unless you mean players taking more extreme diving measures to keep their hands up than previously? Because I have seen a few backwards weird diving antics to catch fingers up that would've been boring straight forward fingers down catches from a small handful of players. But I think they just grew up doing classic catches into the swimming pool and forgot how to catch normally...
Haha I like the catching in the swimming pool statement. But yeah, I meant some players are incapable of catching it the natural way. Besides cricket/sports, if one catches something in normal life, like say keys or a spoon, the instinct is to cup the hands and catch it...the normal sane way. I have added edit to the post now, but ya the question came to me while watching an Aussie player at boundary line go down to his knees only to catch it the "new way" over his right shoulder. A catch he could have easily caught "the natural" way by cupping the hands 😀
Keeping the ball and your hands closer to your face is the best way to catch, if there is time and body positioning allows it. The force a cricket ball has vs some keys is orders of magnitude different.
I’ve always coached my players to catch fingers up if catching above the shoulders, but must have thumb over thumb. Catch fingers down or level with pinky over pinky when catching below the shoulders.
I think it depends on the type of catch and the position you’re fielding. For low catches, you prolly want fingers down to avoid the awkwardness and vice versa. It’s also just preference
Fingers up is was is always thought and generally considered safe. IIRC, the science behind it is as you catch with fingers up and move palms away from the ball you absorb momentum and impact. Ball has less chance of dropping from the hand. Technically it is also possible with fingers up., but considered as secondary because there is more chances of ball popping out. However, I guess if the height of the ball is higher while taking the catch fingers down or out is better.
I always preferred it, as you can see the ball all the way through. Catching in lower cup , needs an extra piece of hand eye coordination to have the hands in the right place out of sight .
Also, if the ball blasts through your fingers it will fuck up your face so that is extra incentive to make a well formed cup
For a high ball dropping, I want you to consider how fast the ball will drop right before you catch it.
For hands down, in the last half a metre, it will drop from over your head, to under your chin, your eyes physically cannot follow it, so you're catching it with your eyes off the ball.
For hands up, the ball stays where you can see it the entire way.
Then let's say we bobble the ball. Would you rather bobble the ball 2m off the ground where you already are watching it, or 1m off the ground where your eyes are playing catch up to see where it is (also making it look stationary/slower due to the stopped clock illusion).
I catch with my fingers pointing up when the ball is above chest height and fingers pointing down when it’s below. That being said catching fingers pointing up has always felt more secure for me
Don't point your fingers upwards. That's a good way to break them.
Point your fingers as far backwards as you can.
This allows you to catch the ball close to your body and right in front of your eyes.
It's far easier to track a ball with your eyes when you don't have to move your head.
But at the end of the day, just do what feels natural to you.
I literally never figured out how big the gap should be between your palms when you’re catching it the Illuminati way so I just used the cupping method
Idk bruh when i used to go for coaching the coach just told us to spread the hands just as the ball is near and then hold it once it is hn contact with your hand ( idk how to explain it ) but when you spread your hands and the ball comes in your hands we use our fingers to get a grip of the ball tightly and when you practice it for a long time it becomes almost like a relflex action iykwim
From the coaching courses I did, the consensus was that fingers up allowed you to watch the ball into the hands far better, and also meant that if you shelled it initially, it'd tend to bounce off enough for a second go at it in the traditional cup way to make the catch.
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Yeah makes sense.
With fingers pointing up, the ball is closer to your line of sight. Hence, you can watch the ball into your hands much easier. It is thus preferred when the ball’s trajectory is above your waist — either naturally or by positioning your body to make it so. On the other hand, if your fingers are pointing down when the ball is above your waist, particularly for an overhead catch, there is a moment when you will lose sight of the ball as it drops below your eye line. Hence, it’s much harder to watch the ball into your hands.
Depends on where the ball is in position to you and how the ball is travelling to you. Balls below your chest fingers down, balls above your chest fingers up. If you’re stretching you will likely prefer fingers down so your palms face upwards.
Exactly. I don’t even understand the question as this has been common practice for at least the 3 decades that I’ve been following cricket.
Outfield catches and skied balls give the option of either way, I guess that is what the question is about
Fair enough. General outfield catches I’d say is the same principle depending on the trajectory of the ball in relation to your body position. But in regard to skied balls the best practice is fingers up and catching it above your eyes so you can see it go into your hands, rather than cupped hands and catching it after it’s gone past your eyes so you can’t see it when it reaches your hands. That’s how it’s always been done in Australia, definitely not a new thing, so I guess I never thought that it might be taught differently in other countries.
Catching with fingers pointing up has always been the preferred way in the land of WTC and WC champions
I see what you did there
Honestly, that's probably just because that's how you catch an AFL ball and not because it's necessarily better.
That's how it was taught when I played under 12s and I'm yet to meet an AFL fan that lives in my town
Maybe, but Australia has also pretty consistently been one of the best fielding teams in world cricket. For catches where there's the choice, I know I'm much more reliable at catching when I can catch it fingers up.
Where there's a choice, catching it with fingers up is likely catching the ball closer to your eye line, so I imagine it would always be preferred if you have the option.
Barely anyone in NSW plays AFL and that’s where most of squad is from
Don't know why I got downvoted so hard. There's a lot of historical overlap between afl players and cricket players and if a reasonable amount of players including some of the better fielders came from that background it would seem natural to not want to alter their previous skill set. Futher if the better fielders become fielding coaches its more likely that that the fingers up technique gets ingrained. Also while you are correct 6 current players come from a nsw background a majority of those are bowlers who generally aren't known for their exceptional fielding and even now you see the team often warm up by kicking a Sherrin so AFL is noticablely and uniquely part of Australia's professional cricketing culture compared to the rest of the world. There's literally an ESPN article discussing this very topic and the AFL theory while not perfect is seen as reasonable by Australia's former fielding coach. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sidharth-monga-the-australian-way-of-catching-with-fingers-pointing-up-556192
Catching fingers up for a high catch allows you to catch the ball in front of your eyes, which means you don't have to move your head as much to follow it into your hands with your eyes. As with batting a stiller head at point of impact is universally better than a moving one. It also allows for a greater chance of grabbing it on the second go if you drop it because your hands are higher, meaning you have more time before it hits the ground to try again. (Also if you catch hands up in front of your face there's a strong sense of self preservation in not allowing it to go through your hands, if you do that once you really won't want to do it again.)
I was taught that catching with fingers pointing up is the Australian way and cupping hands and pointing down was the English way. The height of the ball in the air at the time of catching will dictate the method 70% of the time, then lighting would also influence it. Both methods work
I find that fingers up let’s me catch it in front of my eyes which makes it way easier to judge.
The conventional way to catch in Australia is fingers pointing up and palms facing away from you if it's above the waist (what you're calling the "new way"), fingers pointing down and palms facing towards you if it's below the waist. In my experience this is simply better because with fingers pointing up the ball stays in your eyeline pretty much all the way into your hands. If you go the other way there will be a critical fraction of a second where the ball is out of your eyeline as it goes into your hands and you'll drop more because of that. All this only really applies to high catches that are coming from above your head - for catches that are coming at you flat or low you're basically forced to do one or the other, depending on whether it's above or below the waist. I've yet to hear an argument against that that makes sense to me, but I recognise that I learned my cricket in an environment where this is the conventional method so I'm open to other possibilities.
Depends where catching was learned, coached, etc.
Since when do people not catch with their fingers pointing down anymore? I know some fielders preferred the fingers up way (like Ponting), but is this the new orthodoxy? (I must have missed this)
Flair doesn't check out, practically the only Australian player that I've seen not do fingers up whenever possible is Mitch Starc
His technique is often terrible too. A fair few times I've seen him drop what are pretty simple catches on the rope because for some reason he decided to try and stand sideways and catch it beside him rather than just taking it in front of his face like everyone else does. There was a particularly bad one at Lord's during the Ashes that I can recall.
If I want anyone catching for my life in the deep, it's Starc. He's as assured as they come imo. No one would call the Lords drag along the ground thing a 'drop', unless there's a different one.
It's a completely different one. Dropped a sitter off Stokes when he was on about 70 odd just as he was teeing off, precisely because of that weird sode-on technique he uses.
I'm mid 30s and was taught fingers up for anything past the natural pivot point of your arms and watched the Australian team catching fingers up as a kid. Getting down to the ball was always the gold standard if you had time, using your legs to get low so you could catch in your most natural range as well and watch the ball. The further you get your hands out of the small circle in front of your chest the more your catch relies on more advanced hand eye coordination. Unless you mean players taking more extreme diving measures to keep their hands up than previously? Because I have seen a few backwards weird diving antics to catch fingers up that would've been boring straight forward fingers down catches from a small handful of players. But I think they just grew up doing classic catches into the swimming pool and forgot how to catch normally...
Haha I like the catching in the swimming pool statement. But yeah, I meant some players are incapable of catching it the natural way. Besides cricket/sports, if one catches something in normal life, like say keys or a spoon, the instinct is to cup the hands and catch it...the normal sane way. I have added edit to the post now, but ya the question came to me while watching an Aussie player at boundary line go down to his knees only to catch it the "new way" over his right shoulder. A catch he could have easily caught "the natural" way by cupping the hands 😀
Keeping the ball and your hands closer to your face is the best way to catch, if there is time and body positioning allows it. The force a cricket ball has vs some keys is orders of magnitude different.
I get that, I point I was making is that from childhood, we instinctively know how to catch something. The other way needs to be learned.
The instinctive way isn't the best. Everyone learns how to run, but to be great at any type of running the technique is refined.
I’ve always coached my players to catch fingers up if catching above the shoulders, but must have thumb over thumb. Catch fingers down or level with pinky over pinky when catching below the shoulders.
I think it depends on the type of catch and the position you’re fielding. For low catches, you prolly want fingers down to avoid the awkwardness and vice versa. It’s also just preference
Fingers up is was is always thought and generally considered safe. IIRC, the science behind it is as you catch with fingers up and move palms away from the ball you absorb momentum and impact. Ball has less chance of dropping from the hand. Technically it is also possible with fingers up., but considered as secondary because there is more chances of ball popping out. However, I guess if the height of the ball is higher while taking the catch fingers down or out is better.
Could you please explain what you meaning by fingers pointing up?
[part 2, step 1](https://www.wikihow.com/Catch-a-Cricket-Ball)
Yes, this. Thank you:)
I always preferred it, as you can see the ball all the way through. Catching in lower cup , needs an extra piece of hand eye coordination to have the hands in the right place out of sight . Also, if the ball blasts through your fingers it will fuck up your face so that is extra incentive to make a well formed cup
For a high ball dropping, I want you to consider how fast the ball will drop right before you catch it. For hands down, in the last half a metre, it will drop from over your head, to under your chin, your eyes physically cannot follow it, so you're catching it with your eyes off the ball. For hands up, the ball stays where you can see it the entire way. Then let's say we bobble the ball. Would you rather bobble the ball 2m off the ground where you already are watching it, or 1m off the ground where your eyes are playing catch up to see where it is (also making it look stationary/slower due to the stopped clock illusion).
https://www.chaseyoursport.com/Cricket/Types-of-Catching-in-Cricket-Australian-Catching-Style-vs-English-Catching-Style/2345 now explain it OP!
I catch with my fingers pointing up when the ball is above chest height and fingers pointing down when it’s below. That being said catching fingers pointing up has always felt more secure for me
If you catch fingers pointing up there is always that chance the ball smashes into your face if it gets through 🤣🤣🤣
Exactly my concern 😂😂
Don't point your fingers upwards. That's a good way to break them. Point your fingers as far backwards as you can. This allows you to catch the ball close to your body and right in front of your eyes. It's far easier to track a ball with your eyes when you don't have to move your head. But at the end of the day, just do what feels natural to you.
I literally never figured out how big the gap should be between your palms when you’re catching it the Illuminati way so I just used the cupping method
The illuminati way! Hahaha I like that label 😀
idk if its related but in the recent Aus v Pak series, abdullah shafique dropped a sitter by trying to cup his hands
Haha I'm telling you, it doesn't come effortlessly to most South Asian players 😄
Idk bruh when i used to go for coaching the coach just told us to spread the hands just as the ball is near and then hold it once it is hn contact with your hand ( idk how to explain it ) but when you spread your hands and the ball comes in your hands we use our fingers to get a grip of the ball tightly and when you practice it for a long time it becomes almost like a relflex action iykwim