NEW DELHI: A veteran Indian cricket writer on Tuesday lashed out at the national team's poor fielding standards, saying modern players reminded him of the lazy royals of the past.

Suresh Menon, writing in the Mumbai Mirror newspaper, compared Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men to the royals who would only bat and bowl and left the fielding to the servants.

‘In the early days of Indian cricket, the Maharajahs thought nothing of actually having their servants fielding for them,’ Menon wrote.

‘Fielding was for servants, not masters, of the less fortunate who, for reasons of class or caste did not find a place in the real scheme of things.

‘At the higher levels, it allowed the batsmen to have a prolonged rest, and the bowlers to come off the field after every spell.

‘Our modern maharajas are thus merely continuing a tradition. No running, no diving, no hitting the stumps.’

Menon doubted whether any fielding coach could make a difference -- he would be up against history, geography and, perhaps, economy.

‘History -- India's tradition of poor fielders; geography -- the hard grounds (where diving is fraught with danger in the early days); and perhaps economics -- why take a chance on an injury when fielding which might lead to a fall in earnings?’, he wrote.

India's cricket chiefs recently sacked fielding coach Robin Singh, along with bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, after the team's first round exit from the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Misfields, clumsy catching and poor outcricket marked India's four-run defeat by world champions Australia in the first one-day international in Vadodara on Sunday.

‘If the Vadodara performance is any indication, then Indian fielders have a problem with anticipation (even those near the boundary sometimes look surprised when the ball is played to them), with movement, with stopping the ball, with pick up and with throw,’ Menon wrote.

‘This is a series of shortcomings that makes a mockery of the art of fielding at the international level.

‘Dhoni was strangely silent about the fielding in Vadodara. Or maybe he has talked about it so often now that he is sick of it. Some things never change.’

The second game of the seven-match series will be played in Nagpur on Wednesday.