Fielding has a lot of varied skills involved and while there are 'good' & 'bad' fielders, certain skills are better honed in some individuals compared with the others.

Collingwood's catch off Devon Smith yesterday confirms that he is probably the best reflex catcher in the world. But Gibbs & Symonds have the egde over him in throwing themselves across to cut off a potential boundary.

Ponting is probably the best run-outer from a 'middle' position, usually mid-on.

But Brett Lee has the best long throw from the boundary compared with anyone else by some distance.

That was an amazing catch yesterday by Collingwood.

No better catcher than collingwood, indeed.

I feel like I've read that american fielding coach say the best throwing arm in the australian team was a toss up between symonds and mitchell johnson.

Yeh he was talking about a mix of long distance throwing and direct hitting. Both are brilliant at both.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

I am suprised that most of all rate Symonds better than Micheal Clarke. The way the commentators praise him makes him sound like the go of fielding. I have watched him field in point, he saves many runs and is also very good at run outs. His catching doesn't compare to Collingwood but he has a good arm. Now for Symonds, he is very acrobatic and has an equally good throw so I could rate these 50/50. Nasser Hussian says that he is one of the better fielders in the world and he knows more about cricket than me.

Symonds' arm and ground fielding is second to none IMO.

Michael Clark & Andrew Symonds are both better fielders than Ricky Ponting,and I am taking nothing from Rick in saying this.

I dont think Clarke is better than Ponting but Symonds is better than Punter

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

I would say though, that Tillekeratne Dilshan epitomises just how far Sri Lanka have come in terms of fielding.
I mean, i remember when they couldn't catch a cold, but nowadays they are probably (in my biased opinion), the second best fielding side going. Many people put that down to Trevor Penney, and he no doubt has had an influence, but they still used to be pretty darn good under John Dyson, so it has been a gradual process, and now its reaching the stage where we are fielding like tigers, be it ODIs, or Tests.

On the subject of the best fielder, the stand-out person is Paul Collingwood, but he is by far and away the best fielder in the England team.
Australia on the other hand, have players who are seemingly an expert in the position they field in. What i mean is that, they seem like a fielding unit, instead of just having one brilliant fielder...

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...said outswing