Wicketkeeping standards

[BeeGee]

Whereas in the past batsmen were encouraged to keep, unless they had a nature skill.

Like bird calling? Horse whispering? Bull ****ting?

 

[SJS]

The role a wicket keeper plays in a team's performance is understood less and less in the stats driven times. The same, actually is true for specialist close in fielders. Choose the world's greatest side but make sure they do not have any slip fielders or a good wicket keeper and then choose the the next best side making sure you keep catching behind the wicket (by keepers and slips) as an important ingredient and you may find that such the latter team is more likely to win matches.

Just start dividing the credit for wickets between the bowlers and the catchers in specialist positions and you will make a beginning to appreciating the worth of the specialist fielders and keepers..

We have no way to record the missed catches or the spectacular ones taken miraculously and their role in the match. The bowlers get the credit for a catch which if not attempted may have gone un noticed. Same applies to keepers.

We underplay the importance of keepers largely because we only go by statistics and they are not available to assess a keeper's (or a clutch of brilliant slip and gully fielders') impact on the side's performance.

 

[kyear2]

Fully agree, many under estimate the value of great slip fielders.

 

[Гурин]

I was a bit bored today (rain stops work) so I decided to delight all of you with yet another one of my statistical elucubrations about fielding.

We know that is quite difficult to compare wicketkeepers from a statistical point of view: different pitches, bowlers, tactics... I've seen some ideas like 'chances created and taken', but then how you define a chance? And regardless, nobody has ever recorded dropped catches, let alone somthing like an undefined 'chance'. Byes per innings? But that's influenced by tactics aswell, put back there a good ole longstopper and 4s become 1s. So it all comes down to subjectivity really.

Yet, it occurred to me that there is a situation that, albeit not perfect, allowes me to make a little comparison: a bowler that would have bowled for a long part of his career to a WK, and then for another long time to another one. In the long run, surely dropped dollies and blinders taken would even out, and we would be able to see who was indeed able to create more wickets off the same bowler.

It goes without say, the first istance that comes to mind is that of the lovely Ian Healy and Adam Gilchrist: both have played for long, uninterrupted stretches of test matches, and luckily enough both have kept wicket for half the career to one of the greatest seamers and one of the greatest spinners of all time.

So what I did was simply looking into cricinfo how many overs McGrath and Warne has bowled with Healy or Gilly behind the stumps*, and to how many wickets they contributed by looking at caught behinds and stumpings. The results are quite interesting:

Glenn McGrath bowled 2114.5 overs in 53 matches with Ian Healy as a WK, and they yielded 62 caught behinds (one every 34,11 overs); when Gilchrist was keeping, McGrath send down 2759.5 overs in 71 matches, which resulted in 90 caught behinds (one every 30,66 overs).

Shane Warne bowled 3530.4 overs in 75 matches with Healy for 34 CB and 16 stumpings, while with Gilchrist, Warne bowled 3253.3 overs in 70 matches for 39 CB and 20 stumpings. So, with Healy, there has been a CB every 103 overs and a stumping every 220; with Gilly, a CB came every 83 overs and a stumping every 162.

Now, I know that the two were different bowlers in the '90s (even if it could be argued that Warne was better before the injury) and that there is a lot more to wicketkeeping than converting caught behinds and stumpings, but is extremely interesting how, unless I ****ed up something with the dates (which is not at all impossible), Gilchrist is a statistically better keeper in every single category by a margin of 10 to 25%. Which lefts me wonder... could it be that Healy was simply more pleasurable to the eye, and because of this a massively overrated keeper? Or could it be that Gilly was really one of the ATG also behind the stumps (not pretty, but effective)? Maybe due to his height he was able to take more chanches than he dropped because of his 'awkwardness', even if those dropped ones struck in the memory better.

Just food for thought. Anyone knows of another possible similar comparison?


*NOTE: I simply divided bowling stats of Warne/McGrath in 'Before 18 Oct 1999' and 'After 5 Nov 1999', if anyone knows of some test matches in which somebody else played as the australian wicketkeeper I'd be glad to exclude them from the compute.

 

[benchmark00]

Interesting statistics, thanks for doing that, however I think there are certain flaws involved with that. Looking at it I think the only thing that proves is that Warne and McGrath both produced more chances when Gilchrist was keeping, not necessarily that Gilchrist took a higher percentage.

 

[benchmark00]

I think the only way we could do it is if like baseball the statisticians record errors.

 

[Athlai]

And temperatures and so forth.

 

[Гурин]

Interesting statistics, thanks for doing that, however I think there are certain flaws involved with that. Looking at it I think the only thing that proves is that Warne and McGrath both produced more chances when Gilchrist was keeping, not necessarily that Gilchrist took a higher percentage.

My post doesn't really proves anything, I don't deny that there are flaws. That said it could well be that, as you say, the great bowling duo simply produced more chances in their last playing years, however, given that conventional knowledge is that Healy was a better keeper that Gilchrist (expecially to spin), that would mean that both McGrath and Warne (the older McGrath and the post-injury Warne) created a lot of more chanches than what they did in the '90s. Possible, sure, but I'm not really convinced about that. That's why I'd like to see what the numbers are for other bowler-keeper combinations.


About errors, leave them to baseball, is as flawed a stat as you can get, I already wrote about them in my topic about fielding one or two years ago.

 

[benchmark00]

Mcgrath's stats after Healy retired: 319 wickets @ 20.8
Mcgraths stats before Healy retired: 244 wickets @ 22.73

Cbf doing Warne's, but that indicates the best of Mcgraths years were the back half of his career, which coincided with Gilchrist being the keeper. So unless his better stats are due to Gilchrist, I think it suggests he created more chances in his back half.


And the error stat is flawed because its subjective, but so is basing it on eye. Don't get me wrong, I'd judge it by watching because watching > stats, but if you're going to do a stat for it, that's the one.

 

[Гурин]

Mcgrath's stats after Healy retired: 319 wickets @ 20.8
Mcgraths stats before Healy retired: 244 wickets @ 22.73

Cbf doing Warne's, but that indicates the best of Mcgraths years were the back half of his career, which coincided with Gilchrist being the keeper. So unless his better stats are due to Gilchrist, I think it suggests he created more chances in his back half.


And the error stat is flawed because its subjective, but so is basing it on eye. Don't get me wrong, I'd judge it by watching because watching > stats, but if you're going to do a stat for it, that's the one.

Well, Warne was averaging 25.33 during the Healy years, which is a little bit lower than his average afterwards.

And still, even if what you say holds true, a 10% improvement in the general average for McGrath is consistent with the 10% improvement in wickets in which the keeper was involved, which would put Gilchrist on a par with Healy the Master (by the way, with Warne Gilly's better by 20+%).

I admit I'm a stats > watching guy (actually I believe the two things should be complementary, but whatever), but only when the stats are developped enough. Which is not the current (and possibly will never be the) case with cricket.


PS Should you be interested, here is why errors is a flawed stat.

 

[Гурин]

A last pinch of salt in the discussion: I did the math for Gillespie, Fleming and MacGill, and, despite Gillespie averaging 22 during Heals' reign, both him and Fleming were caught better by Gilchrist aswell, while the keeping to MacGill is about even (Healy has the edge in catching, Gilchrist in stumpings, and overall they compensate). If anybody's interested I can post also these numbers.

Now, with these last bowlers the small sample size and and an aging Healy are issues for sure, but, while there doesn't seem to be a strong correlation between overall bowling average of players and keepers, all of the pace bowlers had more chances taken with Gilchrist, while with the spinners, though not as big, is still advantage Gil. All of which lefts me with the impression that possibly Healy is quite overrated (given that, if his tactical acumen is the one he shows on television while talking adout fielding, I doubt that he holds any advantage over Gilchrist even there). Granted, not enough evidence, but for me this is a start.

A little thought to finish. If we were left without any statistics at all, not even the classic ones, and with the only things recorded being who won the games (maybe by how much), surely there'll be somebody arguing for Gower, Waugh, Laxman or Ganguly as the greatest player ever, and I'm not even starting what discussions would be like about selections. Still, that exactly this is the situation for the keepers is ok for the most (I'm not talking specifically about this forum or the casual fans). Mah. Right, I'm stopping here before overdoing it.

 

[SJS]

How many people discussing here have kept wickets at a decent level and/or been coached on it ??

I must clarify why I am asking this. Wicket keeping is the least understood of cricket's discipline by the lay fan. Almost everone knows a bit about batting and quite a few people know a bot about bowling. Not many do about keeping. In fact, even top international cricketers do not which is why it is the most difficult of the cricketing crafts to be appreciated with any degree of understanding.

Stats, which is everyone's refuge, mislead in many things but no where more than they do in wicket keeping.

 

[uvelocity]

is it possible to compare healy and gilchrist by byes

 

[NUFAN]

is it possible to compare healy and gilchrist by byes

I would say its not possible to be completely accurate.

The reason being that during Healy's career umpires were more reluctant to call deliveries wide, unfairly (for the keeper) meaning they'd be called byes. I don't have exact stats or anything to back this up but I feel confident that this is correct.

SJS, if you count keeping in school cricket when I was about 9 as a decent level then yeah I'm an expert.

 

[benchmark00]

T. Du is the finest gloveman I've seen.

 

[Гурин]

How many people discussing here have kept wickets at a decent level and/or been coached on it ??

I must clarify why I am asking this. Wicket keeping is the least understood of cricket's discipline by the lay fan. Almost everone knows a bit about batting and quite a few people know a bot about bowling. Not many do about keeping. In fact, even top international cricketers do not which is why it is the most difficult of the cricketing crafts to be appreciated with any degree of understanding.

Stats, which is everyone's refuge, mislead in many things but no where more than they do in wicket keeping.

Well, I am a wicketkeeper. Played in the top italian league (which I admit is not a high level, and also I sucked) and kept wicket in a friendly for Czech Republic in one game (as a last minute replacement because one keeper had a wedding or something and another a hangover and I was the one living closer to the ground. Finished my international career with a glorious 1*), but I've done it and hopefully will continue to do it. As awfully as any amateur player who's totally talent free and picked up the game only when he was 22, but I still enjoy it.

I agree that basing judgment only on interpretation of current raw stats is something that could be extremely misleading about wicketkeeping (catches per game, byes per innings and useless stuff like that), but that doesn't mean that we should not try to find something more objective that can help us determine who's a better glovesman; that's what I tried to do in my first post in this thread, my assumption being that If two keepers have kept wicket to the same bowler for a long enough period, there must be something in their record (or at least in some selected ones) that shows their impact on the game of that bowler; the key being the search for some kind of correletion. I was expecting nothing, but I've been quite surprised by the numbers that came out of my research; the heuristic side of me is tempted to do an assumption that tall keepers are maybe better than we thought (me being 1.90 a possible part of that) but I'll leave this to some other time, when I'll have the time and the will of starting a breakdown of keepers stats in Test History and in the current County Championship (I admit that it might never happen).

On the other side, let me say that is the phrase 'stats are too misleading' as an a-priori dogma that I find an unacceptable refuge. Let me specify this, I'm not saying that I'm surely right here or that statistics are a better tool or that in future they will surely be so, I simply mean one thing: be more open minded, cricketing knowdlege, as advanced as it is, is not set in stone. I apologize if I misinterpreted your post or if I sounded patronizing, which I am not, but this kind of approach is something that always saddens me (as much as a discussion about a sport can sadden me, this being the context here), and, unfortunately, it seems to be quite common.

 

[SJS]

SJS, if you count keeping in school cricket when I was about 9 as a decent level then yeah I'm an expert.

:

What I really meant was that at a decent level, like grade level in Australia or the senior league in any of India's major centres or for a university side, one would likely have a good coach to strengthen the fundamental techniques of the game. Then one is likely to understand what goes into what goes into wicket keeping.

The only other thing to do is to read the books by the great keepers of the world. Today the cricketers tend to write a lot about the behind the scene stuff, the inter personal relationships since this type of "juicy stuff" sells. But some of the earlier cricketers wrote superbly about the technical aspects and the nuances of their specific field.

Maybe, I should put some stuff from them although I always feel what keepers have to say about keeping doesn't interest anyone.

To judge the relative measures of keepers through their catches/dismissals per match can produce very convoluted results.

Rahul Dravid had 84 dismissals (incl 13 stumping ) in the 72 innings he was the designated keeper for India in ODI's giving him a dismissals/innings ratio of 1.17

Here are the figures for some regular keepers for their countries

Sangakarra,    1.17
McCullum.      1.14
Kaluwitharna.  1.09
K Akmal.       1.18
Andy Flower    0.77
Stewart.       0.96
Mongia.        1.10
Taibu.         0.97
Parore. .      0.77

Mind you these 9 are amongst the 24 keepers with the highest number of dismissals in odi's

 

[SJS]

On the other side, let me say that is the phrase 'stats are too misleading' as an a-priori dogma that I find an unacceptable refuge. .

Stats are not misleading. Stats alone as a measure for comparison can be very misleading.

Catches held are a function of catches received. To assume that the same number of catches will be received if keeping to the same attack over a reasonable time is not a very solid presumption. Batsmen edge catches off good deliveries as well as bad ones. Out swingers result in more outside edges than in swingers but a bowler can go through an entire match missing edges because the batsman wasn't good enough to edge. Then there are easy catches and difficult ones. Straight forward catches standing back should never be missed - NEVER. Of course once in a blue moon even a great keeper may drop one but it will be rare. So to hold ten straight forward catches in a Test match is not a greater performance than holding a couple of absolutely remarkable ones.

Standing up to medium pace and, thereby , allowing the slips to move wider and allowing greater coverage for behind the wicket catches (besides curbing the batsman) is not something that can be measured in stats.

Then there is the tendency to not consider catches people don't get close to not as chances . The other day against England, Dhoni did not even move when an edge bisected him and Ashwin at first slip. Since it was to Dhoni's right, it was clearly his catch and all the commentators said was how unlucky the bowler was that the snick went right between the two.

Only a week or so back, Akmal had taken a leg side catch that was at least one and a half time the distance from him, on top of that it was an inside edge which any keeper will tell you is much more difficult to anticipate and yet Akmal went for it and held it. If Dhoni had gone for it and dropped it, I would have just said he dropped it but by not even moving his feet in the direction of the snick Dhoni showed he is a bad keeper. The first thing a keeper is taught is to expect to take every thing and move with the ball from the time it hits the pitch and starts rising and moving. If he had been doing it, he would have been on his way in the direction the snick went before having to decide whether it was his catch or not.

So it is not just about holding the catches that you do but how you shape up to receive each and every ball that is bowled, irrespective of whether it goes behind the stumps or in front of them , that will show anyone who knows about keeping how good a keeper you are. A keeper may not take a single catch in a day or make a stumping and yet watching him move for each delivery will show you how good (or bad) a keeper he is.

There is a video on YouTube of one of Barry Richards great innings in a first class game against Lancashire. The video is about Richards' awesome stroke play and it shows only shot after shot hitting the middle of the bat and speeding away to the fence. But watch Farroukh Engineer behind the stumps and his footwork (and how he keeps low always having his gloves at the same height as the ball at that point in time) and you will know what great wicket keeping is all about.

 

[Гурин]

Stats are not misleading. Stats alone as a measure for comparison can be very misleading.

I tend to agree, as I wrote eyes and stats should be complementary. Just, if the right statistics are championed (those that can demonstrate something out of very high correlations), they shouldn't be discarded either.

Catches held are a function of catches received. To assume that the same number of catches will be received if keeping to the same attack over a reasonable time is not a very solid presumption. Batsmen edge catches off good deliveries as well as bad ones. Out swingers result in more outside edges than in swingers but a bowler can go through an entire match missing edges because the batsman wasn't good enough to edge. Then there are easy catches and difficult ones. Straight forward catches standing back should never be missed - NEVER. Of course once in a blue moon even a great keeper may drop one but it will be rare. So to hold ten straight forward catches in a Test match is not a greater performance than holding a couple of absolutely remarkable ones.

Sorry but I don't agree with the bolded part. Infact, I presume that, just like averages that flows a bit up and down over a long period of time but eventually tend to settle, the average of thin and thick edges should, over a few thousands of balls bowled to test batsmen, stabilize itself aswell; you'll have a few edges off bad balls, and a few more off good ones. Granted, there are quite a few other variables involved, but if stats indicate that, maybe, every bowler has more balls bowled converted to catches when a certain keeper is playing instead of another then it should mean something. We don't know, maybe he reached more, or maybe he dropped fewer, but the facts are there. Then, just like a batting average, to use only the numbers would be silly, but I would not discard them.

Anyway I accept that the onus of the evidence is on me, that's why I want to analyze both the test match keepers in history and the current county keepers, for now only with the simple formula I presented (balls per catch, balls per stumpings divided by bowler).

When I'll have the results I'll post them here and we'll see if they could be of any relevance. If they will not, well, it will only be some time wasted for an idea that was worth developping.

Standing up to medium pace and, thereby , allowing the slips to move wider and allowing greater coverage for behind the wicket catches (besides curbing the batsman) is not something that can be measured in stats

...yet.

Then there is the tendency to not consider catches people don't get close to not as chances.

Not by me. That's why in that old thread I linked a few posts back here we were so big about the concept of range.

So it is not just about holding the catches that you do but how you shape up to receive each and every ball that is bowled, irrespective of whether it goes behind the stumps or in front of them , that will show anyone who knows about keeping how good a keeper you are. A keeper may not take a single catch in a day or make a stumping and yet watching him move for each delivery will show you how good (or bad) a keeper he is.

I do agree, but nonetheless, that's why we have to always discard small sample sizes: there are days when you take 4 easy balls of thin edges at belly height, and days when batsmen give you none. But not everyday.

I won't deny that technically Engineer and Healy were great keepers, but unfortunately technique alone will only bring you so far, what I'd be looking for is effectiveness (which of course a good technique helps); otherwise Tony Palladino would have a bigger chance of making it to the England side than Tim Bresnan, and Mark Waugh would be regarded higher than Allan Border. And, were we not to record runs (as flawed as they also are), some guys would actually agree with that.

Thank you for your input anyway (and expecially the video suggestion), appreciated it.

 

[SJS]

That's okay :o)