Australia’s fielding needs to drastically improve as they move on to their preparation for the World Cup, says stand-in Test skipper Steve Smith.

Australia missed 17 chances in the field for wickets in the 2-0 win over India in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, a damning statistic that almost certainly cost them a bigger margin of victory in the best-of-four series.

“Throughout the series we probably let ourselves down a little bit in the field,” Smith said.

“Perhaps if we’d taken a few more chances it might be a little bit different.”

India batted out for a draw in the fourth and final Test of the summer at the SCG on Saturday as Shaun Marsh spilt another, albeit tough, chance.

Australian coach Darren Lehmann labelled the standard of Australia’s fielding as “shoddy at best” against the Indians.

Long-time fielding coach Mike Young has been rehired in an indication of Australia’s determination to fix their fielding malaise before their opening match of the World Cup against England at the MCG on February 14.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do on our fielding with the World Cup coming up to get our standards up to where we want them to be,” Smith said.

Australia shift into short-form mode on Sunday when the 15-man squad for the World Cup is announced.

Ahead of the showpiece tournament they play a tri-series tournament involving India and England, the first game of which is against the Old Enemy at the SCG on Friday.