While I completely appreciate team India's push towards putting fitter men on the ground, I hope similar attention is paid to catching skills

Laxman, Dravid, Tendulkar didn't have six packs but they had the stamina to play long Test inning and had hands that were safe as a house

Even Srinath/Prasad/Kumble etc rarely dropped outfield catches. For all of Bumrah's improvements as a cricketer, he is a terrible fielder. Fitness is a great asset for fielders but having good, safe hands is even more important.

Perhaps catching skills should carry some weightage in the match fitness assessment of players. Rohit Sharma draws a lot of flak for his waist size but he has one of the safest pairs of hands in India. That should count for something.

Shaw deserved to be dropped for his fielding alone. His drops more than 50% of chances. And while some argued that we should not take away his test spot over white ball performance (which i dont agree with), fielding skills are same across format. https://twitter.com/cricBC/status/1339135063741460480?s=19

You say that modern cricket requires all players to be excellent fielders and for that a minimum fitness standard (yo yo test) is mandatory. But what about the actual fielding skills? Shouldn't someone allergic to collecting the ball cleanly be told to work on his fielding first?