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CW's Ranking of WicketKeeper-Batsmen (Tests)

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
I hope this is taken in the spirit it is intended, but what am I missing with all these votes for Lindsay? Is it that 600-run series against Australia in 1966-67? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking this to try to bring him down because he was obviously a very fine player, exceptionally tidy behind the stumps too when you look at how few byes he conceded, and South Africa’s ban certainly shortened his career.

But when all is said and done he played 19 Tests, only 15 of those as the designated ‘keeper, and outside of that one huge batting series he averaged 22. As I say he was obviously a very good player, but I don’t even see the justification for him being the next South African in line ahead of Cameron or Boucher. I certainly can’t figure out what should place him comfortably inside the top ten keeper-batsmen in the entirety of cricket history ahead of all of Oldfield, Marsh, Evans, Dujon, Dhoni, Kirmani and Engineer as well.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
Farokh loved a fake story. He was once interviewed during a tea break on TMS not long after he retired and regaled everyone with the story of how his only Test wicket as a bowler was Colin Cowdrey when he took off the gloves to bowl when a match was meandering to a draw. When they returned to the commentary team one of them said what a great story it was...........Bill Frindall, who was the TMS scorer at the time, then told everyone it was a great story but it didn't happen.
 

AndrewB

International Vice-Captain
Charles Davis's article on the "46-ball hundred":

"On a similar subject, here are some notes I have made on the claim by Farouk Engineer that he scored a century off 46 (or 48) balls at Chennai in 1966/67. Engineer was 94 not out at lunch on the first day, and claims to have hit a six off the first ball thereafter to reach his century…

I don’t have any scorebook for this Test. However, 46 balls (I have also read 48 balls) is effectively impossible. For one thing, in reality Engineer took 23 minutes and (probably) eight overs after lunch to reach his century against the spin of Sobers and Gibbs. After Gibbs had taken a wicket in each of his first two overs after lunch, there was a maiden by Gibbs to Engineer, and Engineer reached his century with a single to midwicket in Gibbs’ next over. He reached 100 in 143 minutes with 17 fours and was out, for 109, twelve minutes later.

With Hall and Griffith opening, there were only 28 overs bowled before lunch, so scoring 94 off that was a quite remarkable achievement, and 44 overs between lunch and tea with Sobers and Gibbs bowling spin.

The Hindu newspaper records 44 scoring shots in his 109 (18x4, 2x3, 7x2, 17x1), with no sixes. That paper has a detailed account, but mentions no imbalance in the strike, and it would have taken an extreme imbalance to produce a century in less than 50 balls in that time."
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
The OP says “it is up to you to decide how much value you put on the batting and the wicket keeping.”
I think the thread has implied there should be a degree of competence at both disciplines, but taken literally those of us who value keeping would place Wasim Bari and Bob Taylor way ahead of the likes of Prior and Stewart who could bat but were not top end keepers.
 

HookShot

U19 Vice-Captain
The OP says “it is up to you to decide how much value you put on the batting and the wicket keeping.”
I think the thread has implied there should be a degree of competence at both disciplines, but taken literally those of us who value keeping would place Wasim Bari and Bob Taylor way ahead of the likes of Prior and Stewart who could bat but were not top end keepers.
But the title ‘ranking of wicketkeeper batsman’ implies that the wicketkeeper should be an all rounder as it were.

Wasim Bari (for example) averaged 16 and normally batted at 8 or 9 meaning that he was reasonably OK with the bat. But I still wouldn’t call him an allrounder.

Ian Healy wasn’t elegant with the bat either, but at at least he had a Test century to his name. Four in fact.
 

gftw

U19 12th Man
Lindsay - 3
Marsh - 1
Engineer - 5
Dhoni - 5
Tallon - 2
De Kock - 1

Breaking the tie with Dhoni

The List
1. Adam Gilchrist
2. Alan Knott
3. BJ Watling
4. Les Ames
5. Ian Healy
6. John Waite
7. MS Dhoni

The vote for the #8 test wicketkeeper-batsmen of all-time begins now.
 

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