IPL style boundary fielding practice will be introduced for Straggler pre-season training, following the casual boundary step over on Sunday. Having induced a modest miscue which sailed perfectly into the waiting hands of Hugo Ward at deep long on, you can imagine the muttering of the bowler, when Hugo then wandered into the long grass with the ball still in hand. Completely absent was the athletic leaping back and forth across the rope, with the ball lobbed back in field to be caught by a fellow fielder or any of the other acrobatics now common place in pyjama cricket. Perhaps it was the wearing of whites that induced a 19th century air of gentle calm on the boundary, to allow the batsman to escape and plunder a few more boundaries.
