Split wicket keeper jobs

[Migara]

We see the keeper has to play #6/7 even if he is a very good batsman, in test cricket. Some times this means teams have to draft players who are keepers, but average with the bat. Some of these instances the team has two top order batsmen who are competent keepers. My question is why the keeping duties are not shared between? For example Sri Lanka had Sangakkara, Dilshan and Chandimal at one time who were keepers. But we had to get in keepers in the way of PJ (who was ATG keeper) or crap like Dikwella to cover keeping job. Current test team we get Sadeera Samarawickrama to keep, who is not a full time keeper, while one of the best gloveman's in the country in the form of Chandimal plays as a pure bat.

Why not split duties? Is their any regulation to prevent it

 

[shortpitched713]

There's no regulation against it in Test or any other form of cricket. I don't know why it's not done more.

 

[Ali TT]

There's no regulation against it in Test or any other form of cricket. I don't know why it's not done more.

Not hard to speculate on reasons why though

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Specialist keepers for spin and pace imo

 

[Silver Silva]

Yes I've always thought that the keeper role should be shared in a game where possible ..
Especially if your designated keeper has made a big score or batted for long in a match , can help ease the workload for sure.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Yes I've always thought that the keeper role should be shared in a game where possible ..
Especially if your designated keeper has made a big score or batted for long in a match , can help ease the workload for sure.

Yeah there's no reason you couldn't. It would be unusual for a side to have 2 equally good keepers in their best XI though. In the case of a Chandimal or Sangakkara you have to also be aware that keeping to any extent, both doing it in a Test match and the training required to maintain it, will almost certainly eat into their batting output. So it's basically always more effective to have one player in the XI whose focus is keeping. Only potential exception would be, hypothetically, if you had both 2 Adam Gilchrist's who were both equally good keepers and good enough to make the team on batting alone. But even then it would still probably make sense to have one more focused on maintaining and improving keeping skills and the other purely on batting.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Of course you could just have a specialist keeper in the squad, not pick them, then pretend your keeper/bat gets a concussion during the game so he can still bat but your specialist keeper can keep