Standing back, standing up

Eagle eyed and observant as ever, Fantasy Bob has spotted that both skippers in tomorrow's World Cup Final are wicket keeper batsmen.  And exceptionally talented ones too are Dhoni and Sangakarra.

It will surprise the legions of cricket fans who flock daily to this blog, well all 3 of them, to discover that at one point in his career FB was considered a wicket keeper batsman.  This was a remarkable designation because he could barely bat and certainly couldn't keep wicket.  But many years ago when he enrolled at an institution of higher, if not advanced, learning in the Thames Valley, the college cricket team put out a general notice inviting volunteers.  Keen as mustard FB turned up.  He had successfully spent the winter as goalkeeper in the college football team, so when the skipper asked his new recruits if anyone was a keeper, FB put his hand up.  The gauntlets were his to keep for the season.  He made a good fist of it - the college team's bowlers were all seam up so FB could stand at a safe distance.  But when he turned out for a town side with an array of spinners, his bluff was called.  He never mastered that standing up milarkey.  In these pre-helmeted days he had a nagging concern about his front teeth.  So he turned to perfecting his world famous in swinger which, on occasion, is still with him today.  The world of cricket is thus enriched.

In the lower leagues that are FB's stamping ground, wicket keeping is a different art to that practised at the elite levels.  Often the keeper is the least mobile member of the fielding side, whether through bulk or age or both.  Technique is based on Newtonian physics - being an immovable object renders the ball's force resistible.   The emphasis is on stopping and it is the role of the slip fielder then to pick the stopped ball up to begin its return to the bowler. Since the slip is usually the second oldest or bulkiest fielder this is frequently done under protest.  Stumpings are rare events, but when they happen they happen in balletic slow motion that would be envied by Sam Peckinpah.

But younger players can be allowed behind the stumps too and can bring something distinctive.  In one office team that FB graced for many years, a raw recruit, a youth of dishevelled appearance with shoulder length hair, took up wicket keeping with enthusiasm.  For reasons that were not very clear to anyone, least of all himself, he eschewed the wicket keepers' gloves in favour of a pair of batting gloves.  Catches behind were rare events but the mysteriously attired figure behind the stumps unsettled many a batsman to the team's advantage.

MacGregor

So FB knows about wicket keeping.  Once upon a time a wicket keepers was allowed to be a wicket keeper.  That was considered enough of a contribution.  For example the great Scottish double international Gregor MacGregor who played 8 Tests in the 1890s batted at 11 and had an average of 12.  He was revered as the finest stumper of his time.  In the Lord's Test of 1890 he took the bowling of Lohmann, Peel, Attewell, Barnes, Ulyett and W. G. Grace without conceding a bye.  Nowadays he wouldn't get a game.  The wicket keeper has to contribute runs.   At one time the wicket keeper batsman was a rare bird.  Les Ames, who played  47 Tests in the 1920s and 30s and had a batting average of 40.56 was the exception rather than the rule.  Nowadays that is commonplace.  So who is the greatest wicket keeper batsman?  Here are the figures for a small arbitrary selection.

	Tests	Runs	Ave	100s	C/St
Ames	47	2434	40.56	8	74/23
Knott	95	4389	32.75	5	250/19
Flower	63	4794	51.54	12	151/9
Stewart	113	8463	39.54	15	263/14
Dujon	81	3322	31.94	5	267/5
Gilchrist	96	5570	47.60	17	379/37
Boucher	139	5312	30.70	5	499/22
Prior	40	2148	42.96	1	117/4
Sangakarra	94	8244	57.25	24	163/20
Dhoni	54	2925	40.02	4	148/25

Neither Stewart, Flower nor Sangakarra played all their Tests as wicket keepers.  As an aside, it is interesting in these figures to note the relative rarity of stumpings.  A far cry from the great pre war Australian keeper Bert Oldfield who had 52 stumpings in his 130 Test victims.

Taking everything into account it is easy to conclude that Adam Gilchrist is the greatest.  It is his influence that has made the wicket keeper batsmen such an essential attribute.  His rapid scoring in the middle order of the great Australian sides of the 1990s and 2000s was central to their dominance.

Knott

But the purists will say that he wasn't the greatest technical keeper.  Gilchrist was a batsman who kept wicket.  But the keeper who became a valuable batsman was Alan Knott who also scored many vital runs for England - mostly in true back to the wall situations.  Knott was celebrated as a perfectionist and as a fitness obsessive long before such things became fashionable.  Collar turned up sleeves buttoned down Paddington Bear hat he was a distinctive figure.  He lined his inners with plasticine.  He would break out in stretching exercises at any point in a match, he could not keep still.

Knott also has the distinction of once scoring 7 runs from a single delivery in Test cricket.  This came against West Indies at Headingley in 1976. Knott took a quick single to extra-cover off Holder. Bernard Julien fielded and overthrew the wicket-keeper. Knott and Tony Grieg ran two overthrows before Andy Roberts at square-leg, retrieved the ball and threw it past the stumps at the bowler's end and over the long-off boundary for four more runs.  That would have been worth seeing.

Dhoni and Sangakarra are fine players both.  FB looks forward to their tussle on Saturday.  But they have some way to go to reach the status of Alan Knott.