A salute to wicket keepers

From S. Giridhar and V J Raghunath, Bengaluru
If leg spinners – of whom we have written earlier in this column - are a strange breed, the tribe of wicket keepers is no less strange. Who in their right minds would keep slabs of meat inside their gloves all day long to stop or catch what passes the batsmen? Today’s wicket keepers don the best of gloves, inners and pads cut off at the knee. Back in the old days, keepers wore cumbersome, heavy leg guards, the abdomen guard and of course the aforementioned slab of meat to protect their palms. Over after over to be on your haunches, do innumerable sit ups, gee up the fielders, pass on tips to the captain and also have the stout heart to accept the fact that people will remember the missed chance more than the brilliant catch on the leg side. All things considered, the keeper’s job is perhaps the most demanding in cricket.

As we begin, almost the first image that comes to mind is the photo from an Ashes test of the 1930s - Bert Oldfield is still on his haunches behind the wicket while Hammond has completed his cover drive of a spinner. Nothing epitomizes better the saying that truly great keepers do not get up early because that is what enables them to make the adjustment to take the deflections that come off the bat. Oldfield of course was legendary. He combined beautifully with Grimmett and knew when that master would bowl the googly on leg stump for Oldfield to remove the bails even if only the heel was off the ground. In those days of uncovered wickets and wickets affected by rain, the best keepers stood up – remember no helmets then - to spinners and made leg side catches and stumpings a part of their everyday job. Keeping well to spinners has always been accepted as the hallmark of great wicket keepers. Among the best keepers in this aspect were, yes Oldfield again – incredibly 40% of his dismissals were stumpings. Wisden Almanack says “Oldfield's piece de resistance was evidently the dismissal of Hobbs, when Ryder sent down an unexpectedly fast delivery that rose cap high: Hobbs, in avoiding the ball, moved momentarily out of his crease; Oldfield, meanwhile, in an amazing movement, had taken the ball and flicked a bail off.”

Who were the keepers who were great at their craft? In the early years of test cricket before World War I there were Kelly, Lilley, Blackham and Carter. After the war came Strudwick, Duckworth and Ames for England and Oldfield for Australia. Because these two countries played the most, they produced keepers with the best skill and technique. Tallon, Evans and Langley continued the tradition of good wicket keeping from these two countries while Cameron and Waite of South Africa were worthy of being counted in the list. Moving on over the years we have Grout, Knott, Taylor, Kirmani, Deryck Murray, Wadsworth, Wasim Bari, Dujon, Marsh, Healy, Russell, Boucher, Gilchrist…. This is just a ‘top of the mind’ scan of keepers over the years who distinguished themselves in the game. Recently, Prasanna Jayewardene of Sri Lanka has emerged as probably the best among current keepers. His glove work is a throwback to the old days – dapper and very reliable keeping.

Pakistan can look back with pride at Wasim Bari (and Imtiaz Ahmed who was also a fine bat) while India can never forget Engineer and Kirmani. But for a horrendous series in West Indies in 1976 when he kept fluffing chances of Venkataraghavan, Kirmani sustained a very high quality of keeping. Engineer was flamboyant but spectacular catches and missed chances are strewn in his wicket keeping record. Kirmani kept brilliantly to the fast and unfathomable leg spin of Chandrasekhar, as litmus a test as ever can be. Some swear that Kirmani once effected a stumping of such brilliance, taking a wickedly rising ball from Chandra over his left shoulder and flicking the bails off, that it has never had its equal ever again.

Wally Grout was easily the best keeper from Australia in the long period between Tallon (1950s) and Healy (1980s). He was very special – unobtrusive, superbly efficient, he would stand up to Davidson the peerless left arm swing bowler. These days, we see keepers stand up to the medium pacers in limited overs cricket to prevent batsmen from jumping down to thrash them. But for Grout it was an aggressive wicket creating option. At Chennai in 1959, seeing Manmohan Sood the Indian batsman dragging his back foot out of the crease in the process of playing inswingers to leg off the toes - Grout signalled to Davidson and stood up. Davidson beat Sood with a big swinger and Grout completed the leg-side stumping. It was wicket keeping at its best. Keepers in the earlier era stood up a lot more to medium pacers. Examples that come to mind are Duckworth to Tate and Evans to Alec Bedser. In fact, because of the nature of wickets and because many of the keepers stood up to the fast bowlers perhaps the byes conceded may be higher for the keepers of those days.

The authors recall Jeffrey Dujon do some acrobatic wicket keeping to Roberts, Marshall and Holding when the Windies came to India in the eighties. But he never had an opportunity to keep to high class spinners. In fact except for Walcott (who had the opportunity to create dismissals with Ramadhin and Valentine) all the West Indian keepers have a very low percentage of dismissals off spinners. This is true of New Zealand keepers as well. This also holds true for the South African keepers especially after the departure of their great googly bowlers by 1930. South Africa of course would be very pleased that Boucher now holds the record for most dismissals having overtaken first Healy and then Gilchrist. Healy is probably the best modern day example of the neatness that is associated with high quality keeping to spin and pace.

The great keepers are not flashy, they are unobtrusive. The biggest praise that such keepers expect would simply be: “He doesn't miss anything”. That phrase brings us to talk of Alan Knott the Kent and England keeper about whom, his team mates say they cannot remember him missing anything significant. Knott kept brilliantly to Underwood even on bad wickets and unlike most others, never seemed to have had off days or a poor series. Knott’s contemporary Bob Taylor was considered by many to be a superb keeper but Knott was good enough to keep Taylor out through his career. In fact after Knott retired, Taylor who was almost as old as Knott kept wickets for many years – and was easily the best among keepers of his time.

There have been quite a few instances where superior keepers have been kept out of the team by a less proficient keeper because that person was the better batsman. Leslie Ames played for England between 1929 and 1939 and kept Duckworth out of the England team. In the 60s Jim Parks a non-descript keeper kept out more competent keepers. Keith Andrews of Northamptonshire was an outstanding wicket keeper who played just twice for England because ebullient Evans – etched in our memory is the photograph of an airborne Evans breaking the wicket - and his bustling batting kept him out. More recently in Pakistan, Kamran Akmal retains the job on the basis of his batting.

Which of the wicket keepers were wonderful batsmen? Gilchrist of course to begin with: The most destructive No. 7 in test cricket history, 17 tons, many of them helping Australia wrestle a win from difficult situations he also won two World Cup finals for Australia. Kumara Sangakara, a most cultured left hander is a pivotal batsman for Sri Lanka. Who can forget this lion heart’s mammoth double century as he almost shepherded his country to an improbable fourth innings target against Australia? Clyde Walcott of West Indies, one of the 3 Ws, had a batting average of 56 and 15 centuries. Walcott would have walked into any World XI of his time on his batting alone. In fact he kept wickets in 15 tests and was good enough to keep to spinners such as Ramadhin and Valentine, a task that must have surely called for some level of competence. Alec Stewart played with the certainty that he was worth his place in the England team as a pure batsman but in 82 of the 133 tests that he played he kept wickets – without inviting censure while never qualifying to be clubbed with the very good keepers. Andy Flower was Zimbabwe’s best ever batsman and gave them the bonus of a reasonably efficient keeper. There have also been examples of some who began as ordinary keepers but grew with the job. Rodney Marsh started his test career being derisively labeled “Mr. Iron Gloves” for his clumsy wicket keeping but improved so much over the years that “caught Marsh bowled Lillee” became a part of cricket folklore. Dhoni till the recent T20 championship has had a fairy tale career. Starting as an ordinary keeper who entered the team because of his destructive batting, he has taken to captaincy with panache. If his learning curve so far is any indication and if his back also holds up, he will improve.

An annoying feature in modern day cricket is the way keepers keep up a constant verbal exhortation after every delivery. Chirpiness from keepers such as Evans and Engineer was to keep their sides positive but this ability to disturb the batsman with chatter and sledging is unfortunately being seen as a part of modern day wicket keeping skills! However one skill that wicket keepers of the modern era have added is the ability to convert average or even poor throws from fielders into run outs – something vital in these days of third umpire camera verdicts.

There is perhaps something silently glorious about the wicket keeper. It is the nature of sport that it is the swashbuckler who is in the limelight – be it centre forward, swordsman, racehorse or batsman. It takes a certain deep immersion in test cricket to recognize that it is the keeper who is at once both the shepherd and the workhorse. The great glove men concentrate through every ball of the innings so that they do not miss the crucial snick or let that hated bye through. To do this over five days and then also chip in with the bat shows that the true warrior in cricket is the wicket keeper.