Is this the greatest era for Wicketkeeper Batsman?

[Flem274*]

PJ only missed one series at home against Bangladesh, it's not like the selectors were gonna dump him for good or anything.

While there are still some great keepers going around today, (PJ, BJ Watling) we do seem to be seeing more keepers like Haddin, AB and Mushfiqur Rahim who are solid keepers, but it's their runs that keep them in the team. Even in the case of Watling and PJ once they start failing with the bat they would be under immediate pressure because this is an age where being a wk is a dual role, you must be able to keep well enough but you must also be able to hold a bat.

Watling was an opening batsman for years and years before becoming a keeper. NZ wanted someone who could genuinely bat first and fortunately Watling has turned out to be a good keeper as well despite a lot of time away from it (he kept in his teens).

I don't think he's in the same category as PJ (gloves first, batting second).

 

[the big bambino]

AWTA. Except I'd argue that Warne and MacGill were much more difficult to keep to than Kumble. Which goes on to prove my constant point of how underrated Gilchrist was as a pure keeper.

Quite honestly how this fact is continually overlooked to denigrate Gilly's keeping amazes me. Gilly was not that far short of Knott's standard. Certainly not enough to justify Knott's quirky selection over him as best keeper.

 

[hendrix]

I don't even see why Knott is considered the best pure keeper.

 

[Athlai]

Watling was an opening batsman for years and years before becoming a keeper. NZ wanted someone who could genuinely bat first and fortunately Watling has turned out to be a good keeper as well despite a lot of time away from it (he kept in his teens).

I don't think he's in the same category as PJ (gloves first, batting second).

BJ was always a gun fielder so he does seem a natural keeper these days.

 

[Muloghonto]

AWTA. Except I'd argue that Warne and MacGill were much more difficult to keep to than Kumble. Which goes on to prove my constant point of how underrated Gilchrist was as a pure keeper.

I disagree. The reason being, the hardest delivery to keep to a spinner- bar none- is the top spinner. The googly/wrong one/doosra is the second hardest to keep to. In both cases, its because the deliveries are very late to pick up. Particularly for the top spinner, it becomes evident only when the ball starts to dip. But with the top spinner, the ball bounces prodigiously high as well as shooting through. This requires the wicketkeeper to rise earlier than expected but to catch any edge, it has to be well timed too- you cant just get right up and catch the ball off the edge, you have to time it so you are not done rising till the batsman is going through with his stroke. (ie, start rising between pitching and finish rising when the batsman is hitting the ball). With fast bowlers, collecting at your collar level for a delivery comming to your body is much easier- the extra time allows you to turn your wrists over to do the 'palms facing skyward/up' manuever. This manuever is practically impossible to do against spinners so you gotto do the 'palms facing down but at neck level' move. This is the most technically challenging move to do day-in, day-out without missing.

Lateral deviations of spinners are far easier to keep to, because it is more of a reflex thing, moving your hands over one way or another. But the top spinner is by far something that will make any technically weak wicketkeeper look bloody incompetent. Particularly coz the top spinner- either left or off of an edge- often comes high, fast and directly at the keeper's body. Its easier to rise with the ball and move your hands sideways and up ( to a leggie, up and to your right) than it is to move it straight up, while rising. Timing the rise as well as collecting the ball at the height of the collar bone is the hardest thing to technically master, particularly when its off a well disguised delivery like the top spinner.

And Kumble bowled the deadliest top spinner I've seen in history.
The hardest bowler to keep to- this I actually have heard from two world renowned wicketkeepers and i can relate to, by keeping to spinners- was keeping to Kumble on the crumbling pitches of India. On these wickets, Kumble's top spinner dipped prodigiously late and spat with bounce and speed with such great change in speed and trajectory that it got called the 'spitting cobra'. The delivery that had every batsman and his dog in a quandry, where Kumble picking wickets as the wicket became drier, dustier and crumblier was just a matter of time.

Warne or McGill never really had the top spinner that bounced and gained speed like the crack of doom. Till 2001, when Kumble had the best top spinner seen in world cricket, it required the highest of skills to keep to him. Even after his finger surgery in 2001, where his top spinner lost a bit of fizz (and ironically it made Kumble a better leg spinner), it was a heck of a lot harder to read, keep to and time your reaction to as a keeper, than the prodigious spinners of Warne or McGill.

Don;t get me wrong, keeping to Warne and McGill were no walk in the park, it required extreme competence as reading the googlies are just as hard for a keeper as a batsman but keeping to Kumble was just on a different plane due to the googly as well as the top spinner.
I once spoke to Deryk Murray about keeping and he pretty much straight away put Mongia in the top echelons of keeping due to this factor.

FYI, i realized I was a glorified backstop and gave up my stint as keeper and reverted to a medium pace/off spin allrounder after i kept to a Pakistani bowler (his name escapes me at the moment ) who had a decent top spinner. The number of balls I missed was actually pretty damaging to my esteem as a keeper, something i worked on for a while due to my agility and athleticism, despite not struggling much to keep to spinners who spun the ball.

Keeping to fast bowlers on the other hand, was just easy as pie. Yes, my palms took some beating some of the days but in terms of conceding byes due to my fault or failing to latch on to a catch, fast bowlers were just no problems for an agile athletic guy like me.


PS: What does AWTA mean ?

 

[Muloghonto]

Quite honestly how this fact is continually overlooked to denigrate Gilly's keeping amazes me. Gilly was not that far short of Knott's standard. Certainly not enough to justify Knott's quirky selection over him as best keeper.

Gilly is a bloody good keeper, I rate him the 2nd best Aussie keeper I've seen, distinctly behind Healy but just slightly ahead of Haddin in this regard. But Knott still was a better keeper.
Knott, Taylor, Kirmani, Healy, Latif,Mongia- these I'd easily place ahead of Gilly in pure keeping terms simply because they were smoother rising with the ball to the spinners and did keep on pitches that had more uneven bounce than Gilly did. in the 2001 series against India, where Gilly faced uneven bounce in the crumblers of India, he didnt do badly but he didn't dazzle on them either. Healy on the other hand, looked surprisingly good- almost as good as Mongia on the crumblers of Kumble's liking in the series in the late 90s. Ofcourse healy didn't have to keep to killer topspinners but barring those, he was nearly as good as Mongia was.

But if pitches had good & true consistent bounce, I'd rate Gilly almost as good as anyone else.
Of all the wicketkeeper batsmen who could make their teams on batting alone (such as Gilly, Knott, Dujon, Dhoni, etc), i rate Gilly easily better than all but Knott and Dhoni- the former being noticably better on uneven bounce pitches but the latter being perhaps a shade behind Gilly. Dhoni i consider a better catching keeper to spinners than Gilly but Gilly was better than Dhoni is at containing byes against spinners. The deliveries that miss everything - bat, glove, pad and wickets and go through to the keeper while the batsmen play outside the line (ie, balls passing between bat and body), Gilly was better than Dhoni at reacting to and preventing byes from- probably because the majority of these deliveries that miss everythng and go between bat, pad/body tend to go to the legside, which for predominantly right handed batsmen are going to Gilly's dominant hand.
But regardless, this criteria Gilly definitely makes Gilly an extremely good keeper- perhaps not the best of the best but a notch below- against spinners.

 

[Shri]

I disagree. The reason being, the hardest delivery to keep to a spinner- bar none- is the top spinner. The googly/wrong one/doosra is the second hardest to keep to. In both cases, its because the deliveries are very late to pick up. Particularly for the top spinner, it becomes evident only when the ball starts to dip. But with the top spinner, the ball bounces prodigiously high as well as shooting through. This requires the wicketkeeper to rise earlier than expected but to catch any edge, it has to be well timed too- you cant just get right up and catch the ball off the edge, you have to time it so you are not done rising till the batsman is going through with his stroke. (ie, start rising between pitching and finish rising when the batsman is hitting the ball). With fast bowlers, collecting at your collar level for a delivery comming to your body is much easier- the extra time allows you to turn your wrists over to do the 'palms facing skyward/up' manuever. This manuever is practically impossible to do against spinners so you gotto do the 'palms facing down but at neck level' move. This is the most technically challenging move to do day-in, day-out without missing.

Lateral deviations of spinners are far easier to keep to, because it is more of a reflex thing, moving your hands over one way or another. But the top spinner is by far something that will make any technically weak wicketkeeper look bloody incompetent. Particularly coz the top spinner- either left or off of an edge- often comes high, fast and directly at the keeper's body. Its easier to rise with the ball and move your hands sideways and up ( to a leggie, up and to your right) than it is to move it straight up, while rising. Timing the rise as well as collecting the ball at the height of the collar bone is the hardest thing to technically master, particularly when its off a well disguised delivery like the top spinner.

And Kumble bowled the deadliest top spinner I've seen in history.
The hardest bowler to keep to- this I actually have heard from two world renowned wicketkeepers and i can relate to, by keeping to spinners- was keeping to Kumble on the crumbling pitches of India. On these wickets, Kumble's top spinner dipped prodigiously late and spat with bounce and speed with such great change in speed and trajectory that it got called the 'spitting cobra'. The delivery that had every batsman and his dog in a quandry, where Kumble picking wickets as the wicket became drier, dustier and crumblier was just a matter of time.

Warne or McGill never really had the top spinner that bounced and gained speed like the crack of doom. Till 2001, when Kumble had the best top spinner seen in world cricket, it required the highest of skills to keep to him. Even after his finger surgery in 2001, where his top spinner lost a bit of fizz (and ironically it made Kumble a better leg spinner), it was a heck of a lot harder to read, keep to and time your reaction to as a keeper, than the prodigious spinners of Warne or McGill.

Don;t get me wrong, keeping to Warne and McGill were no walk in the park, it required extreme competence as reading the googlies are just as hard for a keeper as a batsman but keeping to Kumble was just on a different plane due to the googly as well as the top spinner.
I once spoke to Deryk Murray about keeping and he pretty much straight away put Mongia in the top echelons of keeping due to this factor.

FYI, i realized I was a glorified backstop and gave up my stint as keeper and reverted to a medium pace/off spin allrounder after i kept to a Pakistani bowler (his name escapes me at the moment ) who had a decent top spinner. The number of balls I missed was actually pretty damaging to my esteem as a keeper, something i worked on for a while due to my agility and athleticism, despite not struggling much to keep to spinners who spun the ball.

Keeping to fast bowlers on the other hand, was just easy as pie. Yes, my palms took some beating some of the days but in terms of conceding byes due to my fault or failing to latch on to a catch, fast bowlers were just no problems for an agile athletic guy like me.


PS: What does AWTA mean ?

Yeah and being that good still couldn't stop this from happening:

Cricket Video | Wicket Keeper Mongia Gets Hit on Nose by Harbhajan Ball

And one of Kumble's deliveries ended Saba Karim's career as well.

Saba Karim injured his eye against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in Dhaka in 2000, when an Anil Kumble delivery, coming off the batsman's boot, struck him on the right eye. The wicket-keeper was forced to end his career, as despite an eye surgery in Chennai and treatment abroad, his eyesight had not shown signs of recovery

Remember one of Kumble's deliveries hitting a keeper in the mouth and cutting his lower lip deeply in the 90s. Might have been Mongia again, not sure.

 

[Muloghonto]

Well, if I had to keep against Kumble, I would've gone for the full face shield. Yep, it would've made me unable to chirp/be the 'bowliiiiing saqqi bowliiiiing' type of the keeper, atleast I wouldn't run the risk of a completely broken face.

FYI, i've copped a few on the chin off of the top spinner. Its so bloody difficult to catch the ball with the palm-down technique at collar level at your body. If the angle is slightly wrong, it just ramps the ball up to the chin.
After i cut open my chin the 2nd time inside of six months, i started using a chin strap. Looked silly and people laughed but it worked!

 

[Shri]

Gilly is a bloody good keeper, I rate him the 2nd best Aussie keeper I've seen, distinctly behind Healy but just slightly ahead of Haddin in this regard. But Knott still was a better keeper.
Knott, Taylor, Kirmani, Healy, Latif,Mongia- these I'd easily place ahead of Gilly in pure keeping terms simply because they were smoother rising with the ball to the spinners and did keep on pitches that had more uneven bounce than Gilly did. in the 2001 series against India, where Gilly faced uneven bounce in the crumblers of India, he didnt do badly but he didn't dazzle on them either. Healy on the other hand, looked surprisingly good- almost as good as Mongia on the crumblers of Kumble's liking in the series in the late 90s. Ofcourse healy didn't have to keep to killer topspinners but barring those, he was nearly as good as Mongia was.

But if pitches had good & true consistent bounce, I'd rate Gilly almost as good as anyone else.
Of all the wicketkeeper batsmen who could make their teams on batting alone (such as Gilly, Knott, Dujon, Dhoni, etc), i rate Gilly easily better than all but Knott and Dhoni- the former being noticably better on uneven bounce pitches but the latter being perhaps a shade behind Gilly. Dhoni i consider a better catching keeper to spinners than Gilly but Gilly was better than Dhoni is at containing byes against spinners. The deliveries that miss everything - bat, glove, pad and wickets and go through to the keeper while the batsmen play outside the line (ie, balls passing between bat and body), Gilly was better than Dhoni at reacting to and preventing byes from- probably because the majority of these deliveries that miss everythng and go between bat, pad/body tend to go to the legside, which for predominantly right handed batsmen are going to Gilly's dominant hand.
But regardless, this criteria Gilly definitely makes Gilly an extremely good keeper- perhaps not the best of the best but a notch below- against spinners.

Nah Dhoni dropped a couple of catches off spinners in India over the past 2 years(that I can remember, there is probably more). Easy catches. Oh and AWTA means 'agree with the above' btw.(which means 'by the way')

 

[Muloghonto]

Nah Dhoni dropped a couple of catches off spinners in India over the past 2 years(that I can remember, there is probably more). Easy catches.

Perhaps, but every keeper drops catches from time to time. Usually Dhoni is safe as a bank with catches though and he is actually a very good stumper. That is one aspect where Gilly was good but definitely not very good or great at (stumpings).

 

[the big bambino]

AWTA = Agree with the above.

 

[Migara]

I am amazed how Sanga's keeping to Murali has escaped the discussion. 20 years back Hashan Tillekaratne was electric with the gloves against Warnaweera who bowled at Kumble's pace while spinning it square. Tillekarane was deemed to be too good for a keeper with the bat those days and later gave up the gloves.

 

[Red]

I don't think the top spinner is the hardest ball to keep to. The keeper sees the ball all the way with a well pitched top spinner.

Big turning leg breaks would have to be the most difficult because the keeper is unsighted as the ball travels in front of the batsman and then reappears somewhere on the other side.

 

[Shri]

Depends on the speed its bowled at. Top spinners can cause serious facial injuries whereas the rippers you don't see are more likely to just run away for byes.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Technique-wise you can cover balls that turn away from you fairly comfortably if you can get your hips opening and transferring your weight to the side. Difficult to read, yes, but you can catch it without danger and without altering your core strength too much.

The top-spinner, or the straight ball that kicks, rears or bounces, is very hard to take cleanly because your elbows and ribcage get in the way when you move vertically upwards, and you don't have the time you shift your gloves/hands to the reverse cup. Most of the time you'll either wear it, or end up losing balance entirely taking the ball.

 

[hendrix]

I don't think the top spinner is the hardest ball to keep to. The keeper sees the ball all the way with a well pitched top spinner.

Big turning leg breaks would have to be the most difficult because the keeper is unsighted as the ball travels in front of the batsman and then reappears somewhere on the other side.

even if you know it's coming, it's the height, and the fact that it's going straight at the body. You have to get your body out of the way to bring your hands up, unless you take it reverse cup, but you can't take it reverse cup to a spinner because on the off chance it doesn't bounce you're screwed.

It's definitely the hardest to keep to, IME.

Leg spin, even when it goes behind the body, is just about reaction speed and moving your hands well. It doesn't require particularly good technique.

 

[Red]

Fair enough. I stand corrected!

 

[LongHopCassidy]

I don't think the top spinner is the hardest ball to keep to. The keeper sees the ball all the way with a well pitched top spinner.

Big turning leg breaks would have to be the most difficult because the keeper is unsighted as the ball travels in front of the batsman and then reappears somewhere on the other side.

Offies bowled from round the wicket are pretty horrific, too.

 

[Daemon]

Haven't seen anyone as quick as Dhoni with stumpings. Doesn't make up for the numerous catches he's dropped off spinners though.

That is all.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Yeah, Dhoni's probably the best stumper over the last 20 years. He has this knack of timing himself to create stumping opportunities out of plays that would usually not be considered stumping candidates with the other keepers around. That said, I've mainly been watching highlights over the past year and he seems to me to have regressed on that front. Still mighty quick, but the timing's gone a bit off.