Ian Healy Appreciation Thread

[honestbharani]

Amazing keeper, dogged batsman (loved his 90 odd at Chepauk, which is what drove Sachin to play that amazing counter attacking innings).. Remember almost the whole stadium stood up for that 90, was a genuinely good effort in unfamiliar conditions against good bowling where his team mates were found out. Came across as a good commentator initially and still talks a lot of sense when talking about wicket keeping but definitely leaving a black mark on his legacy with his commentary. As evidenced in this thread, people are recalling him in a different way these days due to his commentary... So sad, coz as a player in the mid 90s, I thought he was amongst the best.

 

[Matt79]

Going to ignore his commentating because it should really be seen for what it is - a very small postscript to a magnificent career. Healy was for so long the heart and soul of that team - people credit Border for leading them out of the bleakness and while this is undoubtedly fair enough, AB would have been pissing in the wind if the powers-that-be hadn't put the right people around him, and Healy was definitely one of the rocks upon which Border built his tower.

The one thing I do really enjoy about his commentating is him talking about keeping, and that's because it's clear the guy is a technical genius with regards to keeping. I was never fortunate enough to see Alan Knott, Evans or going back further, Don Tallon, and thus for me, Healy is the pinnacle of what I've seen of the wicket-keepers art. The guy was like clockwork, right down to the 'bowled Shane' every ball he took from the great man - to the point that his one memorable lapse in Pakistan sits along with the Don's final duck as abberant seals to the legends of their greatness.

You can say that keeping wickets is like umpiring - when its done at its very best level, you generally don't notice it. And Healy was like that, in that you often didn't really notice what he was doing with the gloves. That said, he fulfilled the vital secondary role of all good keepers as the onfield cheer-squad and tone-setter. It's been said that you should pick your keeper on attitude as much as any other factor and I think Healy personified this. His team, and his country, loved him and opposition probably found him extremely irritating - as such, its not surprising he had some clashes over the years with guys from the same mould like Ranatunga.

His skill with the gloves was such that Gilly, who is not a bad keeper by any sane standard, suffered a massive inferiority complex for years, feeling that people compared him to Healy and found him wanting.

As a batsman, he was everything anyone could expect from a keeper pre-Gilchrist. Marsh, Knott, Dujon, you'd have taken Healy as a batsman as readily as any of those.

One of the true greats, and were it not for the careers of Gilchrist and Flower since, probably one of the real very short shortlist for the keeper in the greatest alltime XI.

 

[duffer]

To counterbalance a few of the less friendly posters here regarding Healy...

Few blokes I know swear by him as a keeping coach, reckon he is an absolute genius. Things that seemed tiny and irrelevant, which they said made their job so much easier as wicketkeepers.

He sure helped Parthiv reach the heights when he coached him down here!

 

[zaremba]

As a batsman, he was everything anyone could expect from a keeper pre-Gilchrist. Marsh, Knott, Dujon, you'd have taken Healy as a batsman as readily as any of those.

Hmmm - I'd take either Dujon and Knott over him as a batsman quite comfortably.

Having said which Healy was a handy lower-middle order fighter, don't get me wrong, and he always seemed to be teaming up with Steve bloody Waugh when a few quick wickets had gone down and you sensed a chance of a rare win against Australia.