Greatest wicket keeper ever?

[archie mac]

Oh he was a fabulous keeper without doubt.

I am sure you have read this book of David Lemon.It has individual chapters devoted to the following keepers and is a great little book for anyone fascinated by keeping.

1. Blackahm
2. Dick Lilley
3. Tiger Smith
4. Strudwick
5. Oldfield
6. Duckworth
7. Les Ames
8. Jock Cameron
9. Don Tallon
10. Langley and Grout
11. Godfrey Evans
12. Murray and Parks
13. Alan Knott
14. Bob Taylor
15. Rodney Marsh
16. Wasim Bari
17. Engineer and Kirmani

I think that covers all the top wicket keepers of the world till 1984 when that book was first published with the exception of Keith Andrews. He does write about Andrews in the book, of course.

To my shame I have not read that, but I will keep my eye out

 

[Migara]

Very hard one to judge. Here the help of stats is minimal.

 

[hallmitchell]

Don Tallon

Anyone who gets selected in Bradman's Best has to be a great keeper.

 

[Richard]

Haha, that has to be a record? 6 years 2 months between join date and first post in CC!

 

[neville cardus]

Good call on Oldfield BTW - probably better-known for being hit by Larwood than his phenomenal glovework and one of the longest career spans in Test history.

He was, by the reckoning of the immortal A.A. Thomson (in spite of the last-mentioned's soft spot for Dick Lilley, who shared his initials), the greatest of all-time.

Blackham, having said that, was a bit special, and the ultimate in innovations from wicketkeepers.

English parsons complained that he was assisting suicide in encouraging others to follow his example and stand up to the expresses.

As a sign that the question of batting impacting upon selection of wicketkeepers is nothing new, though, remember this - Australia's best seam-bowler of the 19th-century, Fred Spofforth, refused to play in an early Test match (I forget whether it was in the 1870s or 1880s) because Blackham had been omitted in favour of the superior batting and inferior glovework of Billy Murdoch.

At that stage, Spofforth rated Murdoch higher. He was insecure about the support of everyone besides his state stumper, with whom he had grown as a cricketer and formed a close bond.

 

[neville cardus]

Wicket-keeping, however, is one of the most subjective things. Unlike batting where you can at least get some semblance of Grace's superiority by his figures, you cannot do so with Blackham. Unless there is some amazing catches stat where the only reason possible is for great ability, I don't see how you can have consider him the best "without question" unless you were there to see him.

You underestimate vicariousness. Why not make an effort to study the subject before passing judgment? That would, at any rate, be a far better approach than writing it off solely on account of its epochal disadvantage.

I doubt Blackham ever faced anything that keepers do nowadays.

You doubt correctly. If he did, he would be held in even higher esteem.

 

[neville cardus]

For instance, in one of his trips to England, a group of clergymen complained that he was a danger to the wellbeing of cricket, encouraging as he did the abolition of long-stop, the clergy's traditional fielding spot in village teams!

Oh bugger. I wasn't banking on anyone else having heard that. Where did you get it?

 

[SJS]

I dont know about greatest but here is surely one of the lousiest keepers unless batsman Constantine there tried pulling off one of cricket's greatest con jobs and failed.

Wonder who that keeper is?

 

[neville cardus]

Murdoch was arguably the best batman in Australia at the time, but had strangely not been selected for the side, even as a batsman.

He was a very good batsman, brimful of talent, but not at that stage the best in Australia, an honour which belonged to the Pocket Hercules. It was only when, with Blackham's rise, it became obvious that Murdoch would not make a representative side for his 'keeping alone that he resolved to focus on batting. With such success did he do so that he was soon a rival even to Grace.

 

[Athlai]

Where would names like McCullum and Gilchrist feature alongside these former greats in terms of keeping? Because even after reading all of this I haven't the foggiest.

 

[neville cardus]

You can understand it, as there were so few FC games played in Aust. in those times, with NSW playing Vic. at the most two times a year, Spoff might only have watched Blackham from the stands on a couple of occassions before the first of all Tests.
It should be said that after he played with him in the 2nd Test, he was forever converted.

It would be intriguing to know whether or not Murdoch required the same signalling system that Spofforth applied for Blackham's benefit. So cozening were the Demon's variations that not even the stumper laureate could pick them.

 

[neville cardus]

what about jock cameron? why did CMJ choose him in his pre WW 2 XI? any interesting stuff on him - apart from his style of stumping akin to flicking a cigarette's ash?

A fine player, but more a tyrannising batsman than an arrant wicketkeeper. His 1935 assault on Verity -- four, four, four, six, six, six -- elicited from Arthur Wood one of the most celebrated (and assimilated) cracks of all-time: "Hedley," quipped the Yorkshireman (who was a wicketkeeper, too), "you've got him in two minds: he doesn't know whether to hit you for four or for six."

The first boundary, for those of you interested in such pedantry, went straight, the second to long-on and the third to square-leg. The first six, after topping the open stand, pitched on the bowling green; the second hit the mezzanine's supports; and the third cleared the press box before falling on the path adjacent to the bowling green. The Yorkshire players, joining the applause, followed Wood in his merciless joshing of the bowler.

A few days later, during the Springboks' rubber-clinching win at Lord's, Cameron blasted three sixes in a knock of ninety. South African journos, being so few, were in those days allowed to sit with their team in the dressing room. Louis Duffus's account of Cameron's pre-knock bat-chat is priceless.

 

[Richard]

Where would names like McCullum and Gilchrist feature alongside these former greats in terms of keeping? Because even after reading all of this I haven't the foggiest.

Certainly neither are top-drawer material, they're both merely excellent.

 

[neville cardus]

Not in my books though.

You would be far more tolerable if occasionally you made an effort to expound these curt affirmations. What do your books say which proves false the notion that Latif was a controversial figure? The answer is not so obvious as your bluntness implies. Short of sloughing "Rashid", replacing it with "Shah Abdul" and suffixing "Bhittai", you are attempting the impossible if you want to cast him as a saint. Anyone who drops a ball, picks it up again and claims to have caught it cleanly is wholly deserved of the controversial tag -- just as brusque Pakistanis who claim otherwise are wholly deserved of the biased one.

 

[neville cardus]

1930-31 : In South Africa He went to South Africa and played the first three tests before being injured. Ames wasn;t even taken as his deputy which was Farrimond who was his deputy at Lancashire !!

It was held through much of the 'twenties and 'thirties that Bill Farrimond was the second-best 'keeper in the country, the only problem being that he was also the second-best 'keeper in his county. His selection, then, was not startling.

 

[fredfertang]

"Jock" - now I am reminded of Jock Edwards who kept in a few tests for NZ in or around the late 70's - now he seemed like a nice guy but his would be the last name I would put forward as the greatest keeper ever - does anyone know much about him?

 

[neville cardus]

I think that covers all the top wicket keepers of the world till 1984

The Yorkshire legion of Pinder, Bairstow, Dolphin, Ned Stephenson, Binks, Wood, Blakey and the Hunters must feel rather hard done by. The White Rose's tradition of wicketkeeping is almost as rich as its tradition of slow left-arm trundling.

 

[neville cardus]

"Jock" - now I am reminded of Jock Edwards who kept in a few tests for NZ in or around the late 70's - now he seemed like a nice guy but his would be the last name I would put forward as the greatest keeper ever - does anyone know much about him?

He looks low- and thick-set in the extant black-'n'-whites, ala Godfrey Evans. Although regarded as an out-and-out wicketkeeper, he wielded the kashmir with enough efficaciousness to notch two fifties during his Test-Match rebirth. A genial cove, he handled censure well -- during the '78 tour of England, a niggler dubbed him the worst he'd ever seen -- and continued to make solid contributions until Smith knocked him off the radar.

 

[fredfertang]

He certainly wasn't a great keeper - his, shall we say, "non-athletic" appearance put me in mind of the sort of beer match keeper who makes sure he stands right behind the ball and lets it hit his pads before picking it up and tossing it gently to slip - he wasn't that bad a batter though.

 

[The Masterplan]

Alec Stewart