In just the seventh over of India’s innings in the third ODI, Litton Das spilled a regulation chance to send Virat Kohli packing for only 1 run when he flicked uppishly towards the fielder at short midwicket. Kohli made Litton and Bangladesh pay for that reprieve, going on to score his 72nd international hundred and forging a 290-run stand for the second wicket with Ishan Kishan.

“My catch (drop) was a costly one,” Litton admitted in the post-match press conference. “If I could hold the catch it would have been a different story.” It may have been just one misstep in this fixture but Bangladesh has erred more often across formats this year. In the 21 T20Is they have played in 2022, Bangladesh has dropped 18 catches, including 9 at the T20 World Cup. In 15 ODIs, they have dropped 24 catches while they have spilled 17 catches in 9 Test – with at least one drop in every Test.

Just ahead of the final ODI that denied Bangladesh a series sweep, Bangladesh’s fielding coach Shane McDermott admitted the need to get his players to absorb ‘pressure’ when it came to catching at the international level.”The biggest transition from domestic, Academy, or A team cricket to international cricket is the word called pressure. My greatest challenge is to get the players to understand what pressure is,” McDermott said.

“In my opinion, it is the element of fear of failure or self-doubt in your ability. Trying to educate the players on what “pressure” actually looks like, is one of our greatest focus areas. Then we have to challenge the players to commit a little bit more when things are not going the way we like them. We want them to be courageous. The coaching group is trying to take the pressure away from the players,” he added.

“Talking about the fear factor, we think about potentially what are the repercussions of dropping a catch when the ball is in the air. We see a lot of high balls dropped under lights because fielders have time to think. Trying to train what we think when the ball is in the air, is a very hard task. But it can be learned.

“When we drop catches under lights in critical moments, we create one of the greatest learning experiences. When the player walks off the ground, hopefully having won the game, we can easily say to them that look, catches don’t lose matches. It is a fact. It happens quite regularly. It is a part of the game. We want to drop as few catches as possible. As a team, if we drop a catch, our support staff and our team are gelling together really well. We are trying to keep everyone’s spirits high,” he said.

McDermott has seen this batch of seniors come into their own from a very early stage as he worked as the head coach National Cricket Academy in the early 2000s. McDermott reckoned the senior players have done well on the field for more than a decade now and that the coaching staff expects the younger, inexperienced players to put in additional effort in training to sharpen their skills.

“Our senior players have fielded well for the last 15 years. We just have to manage their confidence. We also have younger players who haven’t fielded at the intensity level of the other night [2nd ODI]. Every player is different,” he said. “There’ll be days Shakib will spend half an hour fielding, and days when he feels he doesn’t need to. It is important to manage the player from day to day. We demand the younger players do a bit extra. They haven’t done the time that the senior players have,” he added.

With the two-match Test series coming up – a format where Bangladesh is not as adept as they are in ODIs – tuning up their catching could likely be a focus area for the home side.