Matt Prior chipping away at mentor Stewart
The story of England's one-day wicketkeepers boils down largely to one man
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
The story of England's one-day wicketkeepers boils down largely to one man. When it comes to run-making, Alec Stewart remains The Gaffer. He is still England's top one-day run-scorer. The rest are scrabbling around on the shop floor, trying to earn an honest living, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.
One representative of the shop floor made it to management level yesterday. In a list of England's top 10 scores by wicketkeepers, Matt Prior has had the audacity to creep in at No 9, courtesy of his 87 against West Indies. All the rest belong to Stewart. Not that The Gaffer will mind if Prior chips at his list; he is Prior's agent. This feels less like a shop-floor revolution than an appointment from above.
An unhappy tour for West Indies ended on an unhappy note at Edgbaston when for the second time in three days they were roundly beaten by a vibrant England side, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Andrew Strauss thus takes the honours to go with the recent Test series and before that the one-dayers in the Caribbean. For him the only real blemish on an otherwise competent performance in what seems to have been an interminable contest since February was an hour and a half of mayhem in the first Test at Sabina Park that ultimately cost them that series. England's general recovery since then has been first-class, the improvement in confidence evident by the match.
England have suffered too many defeats to West Indies down the years — in fact too many one-day defeats full stop — to worry about victories being facile when they come, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
With the top four all in the runs, not least Matt Prior in compiling the highest score by an England wicketkeeper other than Alec Stewart, England posted their best ever total against West Indies and then made sufficient inroads in the first half of the reply to remove all but the slightest prospect of a record chase. The only downside was that Eoin Morgan did not have an opportunity to impress the selectors.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo