How good was Gilchrist?

[Chrish]

This thread isn't about batting..

 

[stephen]

Gilchrist favoured finding the boundary off the back foot, which means that small outfields and fast bouncy and pacy wickets suited him. SA suited him to a tee. India was probably his worst place to tour with its low, slow turners. I'd still take him there over any keeper in history bar perhaps Dhoni or Engineer though.

 

[CodeOfWisden]

A wicketkeeper averaging in 20s should never be picked even if he gives 0 byes and doesn't drop a single catch.
The world remembers the Gilchrist, flowers, Sangakkaras, Dhoni. No one gives a flying **** about healy, Russell, Prasanna or any other overrated oldies.
Runs matter, just because a keeper takes one special catch in 4 tests doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
Idiotic posts by some oldies who have never looked at cricket without their rose tinted glasses.
Jeff dujon, healy, marsh etc etc are just average cricketers nothing more.

 

[TheJediBrah]

A wicketkeeper averaging in 20s should never be picked even if he gives 0 byes and doesn't drop a single catch.
The world remembers the Gilchrist, flowers, Sangakkaras, Dhoni. No one gives a flying **** about healy, Russell, Prasanna or any other overrated oldies.
Runs matter, just because a keeper takes one special catch in 4 tests doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
Idiotic posts by some oldies who have never looked at cricket without their rose tinted glasses.
Jeff dujon, healy, marsh etc etc are just average cricketers nothing more.

Don't agree with any of this. A single dropped catch can cost a team a lot more than the extra 20-30 runs that a better batsmen will make on average.

As an aside, Gilchrist and Dhoni are fine keepers, their batting is a massive bonus. It's not like they were bad with the gloves and only in the team because they could bat. Flower doesn't belong in the same conversation though, very ordinary keeper.

 

[Chrish]

Yeah I think mediocre keeper who can bat would be more costly in a long run than a specialist keeper who averages 15-20 less.

 

[Daemon]

The diminishing returns when it comes to keeping skills are greater than when it comes to batting.

 

[Engle]

A wicketkeeper averaging in 20s should never be picked even if he gives 0 byes and doesn't drop a single catch.
The world remembers the Gilchrist, flowers, Sangakkaras, Dhoni. No one gives a flying **** about healy, Russell, Prasanna or any other overrated oldies.
Runs matter, just because a keeper takes one special catch in 4 tests doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
Idiotic posts by some oldies who have never looked at cricket without their rose tinted glasses.
Jeff dujon, healy, marsh etc etc are just average cricketers nothing more.

Wasim Bari averaged 15 and was picked for 81 Tests, an extraordinary high number for a team that hardly played in it's early days

 

[kyear2]

I always thought Boucher was a pretty ordinary keeper

Boucher was ordinary, tidy enough to the quick men, but nothing special and was somewhat lacking vs spin if I recall correctly.

 

[the big bambino]

Comes back to my point about Gilly and Aus lucky to see him debut at the beginning of his absolute peak as a batsman and keeper.

Over a longer period, assuming he debuted much earlier, say 22-23, Gilly would probably have averaged in late 30s to early 40s. Matt Priorish.

Take it to the meaningless statistics thread. Gilly was one of those players who graduated to test level on the back of one day form. If anything he was deprived of a few good years before his debut.

 

[Bolo.]

Boucher was ordinary, tidy enough to the quick men, but nothing special and was somewhat lacking vs spin if I recall correctly.

Boucher was excellent to pace, up until his last couple of years, when he was ordinary. Didn't see much of difference between him and a Healy.

Its hard to tell just how bad he was against spin, cos he barely kept to anyone who turned the ball, but, at best, I am going to say very.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Maybe I recall disproportionately the latter stages of his career but I remember Boucher fumbling a lot and dropping catches even back to the quicks more than the average keeper. Remember always thinking it was a good thing that Gilchrist was better and took virtually everything.

 

[Bolo.]

Maybe I recall disproportionately the latter stages of his career but I remember Boucher fumbling a lot and dropping catches even back to the quicks more than the average keeper. Remember always thinking it was a good thing that Gilchrist was better and took virtually everything.

Ya, he slid from excellent to mediocre against over his last 3ish years. And I vaguely recall him not being the finished product on debut, but it is too long ago tbh. He had a period longer than Gilchrists career where I dont believe it is possible to differentiate between the two in terms of keeping to pace unless you have watched a ton of matches involving both (i.e. you need to have watched neutral as well, cos I watched them against each other and saw no difference).

Spin exists, which means Boucher cant be regarded too highly as a keeper, but he is being underrated against pace.

 

[stephen]

Healy was a gun keeper. There's a reason Gilchrist didn't get to play until he was mature. It was actually a stumping in an ODI which ultimately convinced me he was worthy to replace Healy in tests.

But Healy is being very underrated I feel. He was voted the best Australian keeper of the 20th century against guys like Tallon, Oldfield, Grout and a bunch of others who were very highly rated. It's not easy keeping to both Warne and McGrath long term.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Healy was a gun keeper. There's a reason Gilchrist didn't get to play until he was mature. It was actually a stumping in an ODI which ultimately convinced me he was worthy to replace Healy in tests.

But Healy is being very underrated I feel. He was voted the best Australian keeper of the 20th century against guys like Tallon, Oldfield, Grout and a bunch of others who were very highly rated. It's not easy keeping to both Warne and McGrath long term.

Warne yeah. But Mcgrath might be the easiest bowler in cricket history to keep to. Every ball is coming at a manageable pace at a comfortable height , in predictable areas and you almost never need to dive to your left.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I don't think Healy is underrated on CW in general. He's rightly considered as one of the best ever. CodeOfWitless is either attempting to be provocative or a 12 year old who thinks anything that happened before he was born doesn't count.

 

[trundler]

Also Penile Dysentery making it sound like Gilchrist fluked an average of 50 in a couple of years when the bloke has a ridiculous century tally considering where he batted and played more clutch knocks than almost anybody. Oh and he struck as fast as Sehwag.

Also Healy had a really long career and his average tailed off a bit at the end but in the pre-Gilchrist days 30 was the bench mark. Waite, Knott, Dujon etc all around that mark. 2 notable exceptions being Ames who played in the 30s and got to downhill ski a bit (fantastic FC record still) and Flower who was a way better batsman than he was a keeper.

 

[Red]

Healy was a gun keeper. There's a reason Gilchrist didn't get to play until he was mature. It was actually a stumping in an ODI which ultimately convinced me he was worthy to replace Healy in tests.

But Healy is being very underrated I feel. He was voted the best Australian keeper of the 20th century against guys like Tallon, Oldfield, Grout and a bunch of others who were very highly rated. It's not easy keeping to both Warne and McGrath long term.

Healy is the best keeper I've ever seen. I'm aware I probably have some bias but he was the complete technician, pure genius. He was sooo sharp.

 

[Bijed]

The diminishing returns when it comes to keeping skills are greater than when it comes to batting.

This is true, but equally the gap in being between your typical 'batsman who keeps' and 'specialist keeper' these days is substantial but not massive imo. Blokes like Gilchrist or even Prior, really, are the exception

Although I suppose you don't get a ton of truly exceptional glovemen either

 

[wpdavid]

I remember talk that Gilchrist was pretty average as a keeper on his first tour of England in 2001. Obviously worked very hard on it, as I don't recall any mistakes from the '05 series.

Didn't he drop Vaughan at Old Trafford, when he went on to make a hundred? Not saying he wasn't a damn fine keeper though.

EDIT
Here's the Vaughan drop I was thinking about, at 3:35
Not at all easy though. The commentators did say it was his second drop of the innings; some quick research told me that the first one was Trescothick.

 

[jimmy101]

A wicketkeeper averaging in 20s should never be picked even if he gives 0 byes and doesn't drop a single catch.
The world remembers the Gilchrist, flowers, Sangakkaras, Dhoni. No one gives a flying **** about healy, Russell, Prasanna or any other overrated oldies.
Runs matter, just because a keeper takes one special catch in 4 tests doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
Idiotic posts by some oldies who have never looked at cricket without their rose tinted glasses.
Jeff dujon, healy, marsh etc etc are just average cricketers nothing more.

Geez, this is a shocking post.