In a moment that has now gone viral from the Indian Premier League’s 2026 season, Shreyas Iyer took one of the best catches of the league’s 19-year history to dismiss Hardik Pandya at the Wankhede Stadium. The reaction from Mumbai players like Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma immediately after Iyer sent the ball back inside the boundary ropes with a superhuman aerial effort was enough to demonstrate just how impressive the catch was.
Even though cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar was among the many former players gushing about the catch, Iyer joked that no one was patting him on the back for that catch. Now, Iyer has received praise for the catch from the authority in all matters of fielding: Jonty Rhodes.
In a post on X, Rhodes said that he had felt like the ‘father of fielding’ for a long time, but these days when he sees efforts like Iyer’s, he begins to feel like the ‘grandfather of fielding’ instead.
“Watching perform that acrobatic fielding to assist in taking the ‘team catch’ made me appreciate how fielding has evolved since my retirement. For a long time, I felt like the ‘father of fielding’, but watching these modern athletes with their timing and awareness on the boundary line, makes me feel like the ‘grandfather of fielding’!” Rhodes wrote in the post.
The South African legend continued: “I spent 99% of my career fielding in the inner circle, and when I started working as a fielding coach, there was no focus on the modern day ‘hotspots’ on the boundaries. It was only when I started working with and saw Kieron Pollard, and then , performing these incredible ‘airborne saves’ on the boundaries that we started focusing on not only taking catches off balls that were already beyond the rope, but even saving the ball from going for a sixer, and forcing the batters to run only 1 or 2.”
He then explained how efforts like Iyer’s could raise the morale of a team.
“With impact players transforming the way that batters can continuously attack the bowling, even with the loss of 4-5 wickets, bowlers need to be backed up by their fielders, and Shreyas’ spectacular ‘catch and release’ was a perfect example of that. But let’s face it; when your head coach is Ricky Ponting, one of the greatest fielders in the game, it should not come as a great surprise to see such incredible feats in the field!”
