As I've stated above, it's drops, taking half chances, creating chances, standing up to the stumps to the medium pacers, byes, covering 1st slip.
Watch Knott standing up to Deadly and tell me 8 extra runs an innings is worth that? Not a chance.
Even watch someone like Boucher try to keep to Murali, it was a **** show.
If you're dropping chances, you're losing matches, it's that simple. We've had our fair share, Courtney Brown and Junior Murray sunk our chances on multiple occasions.
There's a certain poster who speaks to Pant's ability to make up for missed chances with the bat. What happens when he doesn't? Didn't...
No one, given half a choice is keeping Flower as their primary keeper. It was borne out of necessity. Even the English experiment with Stewart and Russell was a disaster.
When Alec took the gloves, England was worse in front of and behind the stumps. He was the worse keeper and his batting dropped off. Where was the benefit?
I agree when it comes to sub standard keepers dropping more catches than they should. Having watched Matthew Wade with the gloves, I much preferred the trade off in batting average having Peter Nevill in the side. I think Nathan Lyon's bowling improved having a proper keeper in the side. That said the trade off in batting skills should be considered once you meet a certain competency, this is why Alan Knott was arguably selected over Bob Taylor or Gilchrist over Healy. But you do need a certain level of competency with the gloves to warrant selection.
My point is more to the elite level of skill that only the finest keepers possess. The ability to stand up to the stumps to pace bowlers does not generate a huge difference in the taking of wickets. I'm fairly certain Jack Russell only got 2 stumpings in test cricket from pace bowling and that was over 54 matches. You can make arguments for the entertainment value of it but when it comes to winning, having a higher average with the bat has a more consistent impact. The same applies to the concession of byes, my original post had a link that showed the difference between the worst & best keepers was only around 5 byes a match. So purely on this metric a keeper with a batting average 2.5 runs higher covers this small difference.
I would agree that the ability to keep well to spinners is a difference maker for teams that utilise them. I alluded to that idea in my original post in the discrepancies between pace & spin bowling. Certainly Murali is going to perform better with someone like Prasana keeping to him over Boucher who is more pace specialised.
The interesting one for me is where you have the half chances/spectacular catches. They do open an opportunity for saving runs that standard keepers cannot achieve. My question is though, how often do the spectacular catches happen? I feel like they only occur once or twice in a test series but I don't know. If they're only occurring sporadically a difference of say ~5 runs in batting average would have more consistent impact. This for me does raise a question on whether you rely on better consistent results with the bat or one possibly pivotal or inconsequential catch in a series as one reason for your selection of wicketkeeper.
Of course I agree with your point about Stewart & Russell given that I originally mentioned him as an example on the first page. Giving Russell the gloves was a net positive decision because Stewart covered Russell's poorer batting with an improvement in his own & England's keeping quality also improved.
The difference is where you are purely making the choice of your keeper, lets say all other 10 spots are filled so you are just deciding on who gets that final spot & why? In an ATG side you'd be wanting a good keeper because their batting matters less, in a minnow side the batting matters more. I personally think that Zimbabwe team would prefer to have Andy Flower in their XI over Ian Healy if they could only pick one & they had to keep because you simply aren't competitive if you're getting rolled for 150 every game without him. You would certainly argue the opposite for Sri Lanka with Murali bowling & having other good batsmen in the side.
A side point we never seem to hear Bert Oldfield mentioned in ATG sides despite his crazy stumpings record, obviously he was before a lot of our time but still. Batting is clearly considered with ATG selections hence why you're likely to see Gilchrist selected over better keepers but I agree that picking Pant or Flower in your ATG team to keep would be a step too far.
