Best Gloveman (purely in keeping alone)

[Bonnie Prince C]

I voted Boucher. His past performances put him a head of Jayawardene for me. I believe there are better keepers in the world than the ones who are playing international cricket. The likes of James Foster. He has very good glove skills but his willow skills are not good enough to break into test match cricket.

 

[Flem274*]

Most reliable would be Boucher and Jayawardene

For X factor in taking a brilliant catch I'd go McCullum.

 

[Smudge]

Can't have Boucher after that abysmal drop against NZ in the 2003 WC. Petty, I know, but that was as gooberish as keepers' catches come.

 

[King Pietersen]

As a pure keeper, Chris Read. A bit quiet behind the stumps though, which I think counted against him during the last decade.

You're wrong. Read's not even the best in England anymore. James Foster's easily better than Read. Read's the most over-rated keeper of all-time. He really wasn't good enough for international cricket, his keeping was good, but his batting was woeful. The fact Foster's not been given a go is ludicrous tbh, he's far better than both Prior and Ambrose.

As for the best gloveman in the world. It's Brendon McCullum. He's extremely solid behind the stumps. He's incredibly agile, takes some storming catches (Bell in the ODI series in NZ for example) and keeps fantastically to the guile and bounce of Vettori, and then Patel when he plays. Class keeper, he's also one of the most exciting batsmen in World Cricket as well, just an awesome talent.

 

[Steulen]

Tempted to say Haddin, then remembered him diving in front of 1st slip and merely deflecting a ball that would have been a fairly straightforward catch to slip at Jo'burg this weekend. Cardinal sin, so not him.

Taibu is a good keeper but only plays the occasional ODI, so can't vote for him. McCullum is probably the one keeper most likely to take an outrageous catch, and one of the most likely to drop a dolly. So not him either.

I've always been impressed with Boucher's glovework, and although I haven't seen too much of him Jayawardene's stats are excellent factoring in that he has to keep to two magical spinners. His reflexes must border on clairvoyance. So boring as it may be..a toss up between those two.

 

[Richard]

I voted Boucher. His past performances put him a head of Jayawardene for me. I believe there are better keepers in the world than the ones who are playing international cricket. The likes of James Foster. He has very good glove skills but his willow skills are not good enough to break into test match cricket.

Arguably, they are. I'd much prefer the batting Foster has so far demonstrated in Test cricket to that which Ambrose so far has. I do believe Ambrose is at domestic level and could be at Test level a far better batsman than Foster, but to date he's been a big disappointment and Foster performed a pretty reasonable role back in 2001/02 (albeit it was utterly ludicrous the idea that he should be preferred to Stewart).

Prior, BTW, still looks to me like an accident waiting to happen with the gloves and I hope and pray that he goes out of the Test team before any such thing does happen and proves fatal. In ODIs, obviously, his batting is simply nowhere near good enough.

 

[Richard]

You're wrong. Read's not even the best in England anymore. James Foster's easily better than Read. Read's the most over-rated keeper of all-time.

I'm really not sure about that. I've seen Foster make more errors than Read. Read is generally of the unobtrusive school, whereas Foster tends to be a bit more flashy - witness the regularity with which he tends to take the bails off.

That said, I've hardly seen Foster in recent years and what I have seen has been in the shorter game (often 40-over). So he could've gotten better, but he'd have to have really gone some to have gotten better than Read.

As for the best gloveman in the world. It's Brendon McCullum. He's extremely solid behind the stumps. He's incredibly agile, takes some storming catches (Bell in the ODI series in NZ for example) and keeps fantastically to the guile and bounce of Vettori, and then Patel when he plays. Class keeper, he's also one of the most exciting batsmen in World Cricket as well, just an awesome talent.

The one thing McCullum isn't is solid. He's always made a basic error out-of-the-blue just a bit too often. As for his batting, well, let's just say that to date it's woefully overrated.

 

[ozone]

Anyone else thinking McCullums only getting a lot of votes because he every so often does something incredible? Much as he is a decent keeper who is capable of pulling something a bit special out, he does still make errors, although I admit, haven't seen a lot of his keeping recently.

 

[Richard]

Unquestionably, IMO, Boucher and Prasanna Jayawardene tend to make fewer of the unacceptable errors which govorn wicketkeeping than McCullum does.