Fielding coaching has come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s when the slip cradle and long barrier were still king.

Gone is the time when diving for the ball was considered almost crass, and running after it was often no more than a half hearted effort.

No longer is it just about a tracksuited coach launching countless balls skywards for players to try and catch. The sport has undergone something of a Renaissance in the past 20 years, and a more enlightened approach has evolved.

There are now proper drills, skills to be learnt and honed, and techniques to be developed. As batting and bowling requires practice, fielding is now no longer an afterthought but an important part of any training session.

It's an area that Bermuda have been lacking in, in the past. No more. As the evidence of the past ten days have shown, there may be frailties in the Bermuda team but fielding isn't one them.

And's it no coincidence that, that turnaround has happened since the arrival of head coach David Moore, and the introduction of specialist fielding coach Julien Fountain. Nor is it a coincidence that Fountain's background is in baseball, a sport that cricket has borrowed heavily from in recent years.

"In the past fielding practice used to be 'catch that, field this, pick it up and throw it'. It's a little bit more complex than that, but it's also the easiest out of the three disciplines to be really good at," said Fountain.

The Englishman first ran into the Bermuda team at their training camp in South Africa in April, prior to the Namibia tour. But he had heard about them long before that.

"I'd heard of the Bermuda side in my cricketing travels over the last few years, but my first actual hands-on experience of them was at the camp in Pretoria, and I did get the feeling that their technical knowledge of fielding wasn't great," said Fountain.

"They were quite keen to run around and pick up balls and catch balls, but they didn't seem to be aware of the technicality behind it, they weren't aware of the different skills, or how to execute some of the skills.

"So there was just a lack of fielding knowledge and know-how. But even that week I spent with them in Pretoria you could see improvements, every day they were hungry for more knowledge, they kept asking 'show me how you do this', and I did, and by the end of the week, they were getting a little better.

"And again, with the work I've done since I arrived on the Island, I'm really happy to say that every day they have improved. And what you have seen was fairly reflective of their progress, they are listening, they are executing, they are starting to think more, they are more aware of the game."

The first coach with a baseball background to work in Test cricket when he was brought in to work with the West Indies team in 1998, Fountain has a unique view when it comes to both sports. A former county cricketer in England, he also represented Great Britain at baseball at the European Championships, and Olympic qualifiers.

To suggest that he knows what he is talking about is something of an understatement. So when he talks about the way coaching has developed in the past few years, it is worth listening.

"When I was first drafted into professional cricket in 1996, there were lots of people practiced fielding in county cricket, and it was generally the head coach's job, because that was when they were seen by the committee who hired them, that was when they were seen to be running around in a track suit.

"That's why I had quite an interesting start to my career, it was only the very forward thinking county coaches who initally got me involved because the rest felt they had to look like they were doing something.

"Time has gone on and fielding is now looked at like batting or bowling, it's a technical skill, it's a tactical skill. And in fact, if you're going to compare it, it is like a combination of batting and bowling. It's got the physical aspect of bowling but it's got the skill aspect of batting. There are a number of skills that you have to be able to operate, so many different movements are involved.

"But up until recently nobody has actually taken the time to teach it. it's just like batting, you can teach it, and if you learn how to use your feet properly, if you learn how to use your hands properly, if you learn which skill you use at which position, for which kind of ball, to which kind of angle, to which kind of target, it all falls into place.

"In the past fielding practice used to be 'catch that, field this, pick it up and throw it'. And that's like teaching someone to drive a car and saying 'there's first gear, you drive forward, you learn the rest yourself'. It's a little bit more complex than you think, but it's also the easiest out of the three disciplines to be really good at.

"It's far easier to make a player into a good fielder than it is into a good batsman or bowler, and the reason for that is you control the ball, you control what you're doing, it's not reliant on anything else, it's your game. Fielding is just you and the ball."

Fountain though isn't just tasked with improving the fielding at the highest level, Moore wants him to work from the bottom up, as well as from the top down.

"David (Moore) was absolutely clear when he spoke to me initially about coming on board and helping, was that yes, we need to make sure that the elite guys at the top end are sorted. But also, that's not it, that the coaches need help, the younger players need help. You're going to get a progression, you're going to need new players, and you can't be retraining everybody once they get to the top.

"It's got to be from the bottom up, from the top down, and I know Dave was adamant about that. My remit is to help coaches, help the youth teams, go to the clubs.

"It's a lot harder to teach an old dog new tricks than a young dog, but they are old dogs with a remit to make sure that Bermuda cricket is going well. So if they are buying into the fact that Bermuda cricket needs a helping hand, everything I will bring to their fielding coaching, they'll be able to see results within minutes, literally."