Ben Foakes

[halba]

Costly selection bungle here. A good wicketkeeper, and Foakes is a very good keeper, wins you cricket matches. An average keeper gets draws.


Re batting Foakes is good with the bat, scored a ton in county


Bairstow - excellent bat should be no3, In place of the relatively average Pope, but he is not a great keeper, just an average one.

 

[CodeOfWisden]

Specialist keepers are a thing of the past, the likes of Knott and Healy wouldn't have had an international career in this era.
Thanks to Gilchrist, Farokh, Ames for exposing these posers, Pant,Rizwan,Bairstow,Blundell,Liton will finally put the last nail on this coffin.
Specialist keepers are the biggest frauds to ever play cricket.
Imagine playing cricket for 20+ years and the only thing you know is how to field at one particular position

 

[CodeOfWisden]

A good wicketkeeper, and Foakes is a very good keeper, wins you cricket matches. An average keeper gets draws.

I saw Foakes keeping wickets in India, not only did Pant brutally thrash him when it came to batting he also hardly dropped a catch while foakes put down many chances, it's a sham

 

[ataraxia]

Specialist keepers are a thing of the past, the likes of Knott and Healy wouldn't have had an international career in this era.
Thanks to Gilchrist, Farokh, Ames for exposing these posers, Pant,Rizwan,Bairstow,Blundell,Liton will finally put the last nail on this coffin.
Specialist keepers are the biggest frauds to ever play cricket.
Imagine playing cricket for 20+ years and the only thing you know is how to field at one particular position

This is plain wrong. Knott could bat.

 

[ataraxia]

Knott takes the gloves for England, South Africa, Australia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies easily. Pakistan, India, and NZ are maybes, but considering how important wicketkeeping is then probably those too. To say he wouldn't have had an international career is preposterous. He's half a cut below Botham, centuries (2 v Australia, 1 v WI) be damned.

 

[social]

This is plain wrong. Knott could bat.

As could Heals plus Ames couldn’t keep

 

[ataraxia]

As could Heals plus Ames couldn’t keep

To be selected for England consistently without complaint in the 30s, he certainly could. His batting was minnow-inflated however, at test level.

 

[Michelle Fivefer]

Specialist keepers are a thing of the past, the likes of Knott and Healy wouldn't have had an international career in this era.
Thanks to Gilchrist, Farokh, Ames for exposing these posers, Pant,Rizwan,Bairstow,Blundell,Liton will finally put the last nail on this coffin.
Specialist keepers are the biggest frauds to ever play cricket.
Imagine playing cricket for 20+ years and the only thing you know is how to field at one particular position

I’d rather see a skillful specialist keeper who’ll take the catches and effect the stumpings than a random player assigned to that position who’ll drop a few. You haven’t even put forward a more suitable suggestion.

P.S. was your post just a wind-up?

 

[honestbharani]

Specialist keepers are a thing of the past, the likes of Knott and Healy wouldn't have had an international career in this era.
Thanks to Gilchrist, Farokh, Ames for exposing these posers, Pant,Rizwan,Bairstow,Blundell,Liton will finally put the last nail on this coffin.
Specialist keepers are the biggest frauds to ever play cricket.
Imagine playing cricket for 20+ years and the only thing you know is how to field at one particular position

That is an almost Burgey-esque rant.

 

[Gnske]

That is an almost Burgey-esque rant.

Its actually a high iq take

 

[honestbharani]

Its actually a high iq take

From another ethical mind?

 

[Aidan11]

The Bairstow v Foakes debate will never emulate Read v Jones.

 

[CodeOfWisden]

That is an almost Burgey-esque rant.

Why did England pick Bairstow over Foakes?
Same goes for Pant over Saha when Saha was clearly the better keeper, do you think around 80s or 90s anyone would pick Pant over Saha considering their glovework?
Thanks to this new mindset we picked Pant and now he has developed into a good keeper too.

Wicketkeeping is nowhere as hard as batting/bowling, it's a secondary skill incomparable to batting/bowling and should always be treated in the same manner.

You will see in the coming time that all teams will adopt the same strategy and that will be a testament to what I am saying.

 

[Michelle Fivefer]

The Bairstow v Foakes debate will never emulate Read v Jones.

Read v Jones was a more colourful debate.

The debate should focus on the continued refusal of selectors to acknowledge that wicket-keeping is a specialist skill and select the better man based on that skill, not on how many runs he can score at 7 or 8. So, of course, back in the day, Read should clearly have been first choice.
A better keeper (Foakes) will take more wickets & save more runs than an average one (Jos Buttler springs to mind). Which over time contribute to more England wins. Hopefully.

 

[Michelle Fivefer]

Why did England pick Bairstow over Foakes?
Same goes for Pant over Saha when Saha was clearly the better keeper, do you think around 80s or 90s anyone would pick Pant over Saha considering their glovework?
Thanks to this new mindset we picked Pant and now he has developed into a good keeper too.

Wicketkeeping is nowhere as hard as batting/bowling, it's a secondary skill incomparable to batting/bowling and should always be treated in the same manner.

You will see in the coming time that all teams will adopt the same strategy and that will be a testament to what I am saying.

I like to see a good wicket-keeper, taking the catches, effecting stumpings and fielding the balls that get away. How do you know it’s so easy? There are 11 players in a team, batting, bowling and fielding, You’d expect a bowler to bowl well and a batsman to bat well. Why on earth would you not want soneone behind the stumps with an equivalent level of competence? You are pleased that Pant has developed into a good keeper, so clearly you must believe it’s a good thing.

 

[Michelle Fivefer]

P.S. To the question “Why did England pick Bairstow over Foakes”?
Because they are idiots. They wanted Bairstow in the team, could have left out someone else. Crawley perhaps.

 

[Michelle Fivefer]

Costly selection bungle here. A good wicketkeeper, and Foakes is a very good keeper, wins you cricket matches. An average keeper gets draws.


Re batting Foakes is good with the bat, scored a ton in county


Bairstow - excellent bat should be no3, In place of the relatively average Pope, but he is not a great keeper, just an average one.

Only just seen this. I’ve been arguing with someone who thinks a good wicket keeper is irrelevant as “anyone can do it”. Agree with you completely. For some reason there are cricket lovers who seem to think that the only players who contribute to a cricket match win are batsmen and bowlers.

 

[wpdavid]

Lest we forget, Bairstow's catching & stumping success rate is currently running at 25% in this test. Foakes isn't infallible behind the stumps, but Bairstow needs to be averaging well over 100 with the bat to make up for his deficiency in that area.

 

[Aidan11]

Only just seen this. I’ve been arguing with someone who thinks a good wicket keeper is irrelevant as “anyone can do it”. Agree with you completely. For some reason there are cricket lovers who seem to think that the only players who contribute to a cricket match win are batsmen and bowlers.

It's all Alec Stewart's fault.

 

[Ashes81]

It's not just about picking the best keeper. Bob Taylor was a better keeper than Alan Knott, not by much but he was better.
But Knotty's batting was so much better than Taylor's that he was the obvious pick.

I would pick both Foakes and Bairstow but if its one or the other, its got to be Bairstow.

He's usually decent enough behind the stumps, not as good as Foakes but good enough.

I think he's very rusty after being out for so long and as the series goes on, he'll return to his normal level.