Keeping the Faith

[Lyell_Chris]

maybe coaches should be more honest and say "your hopeless at bowling, take up keeping "

 

[Jono]

Cricinfo ripped off the title of your article Neil

 

[Blaze]

Parore was the man behind the stumps.

 

[chaminda_00]

As Top Cat said its a cycle, look at the young keepers coming through Taibu, Ramdin, Mushfiqur Rahim and Akmal. All are very good keepers and are capable of scoring Test centuries. These guys are more in mould of Healy, Marsh and Knott then Gilchrist, Flower and Sangakkara. Im sure if Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand and England can find these types of keeper/batsmen then they would make their sides infront of the current keepers.

 

[Lyell_Chris]

McCullum doesn' make 2 many mistakes

and he stands up to guys bowling 125 kph

 

[chaminda_00]

If he doesn't make too many mistakes then why does he apparenty have one of the lowest conversion rates of most of the current keepers.

 

[Lyell_Chris]

because he stands up 2 styris n astle so its very hard to catch the half chances

 

[Tim]

Does anyone have McCullums stats for the last 2 years in ODI cricket? if you remove his first 2 years where he was struggling to keep on a dodgy knee.

 

[Hanuma]

call me ignorant...but i really dont see how being a wickie is so much of a specialist position.

the person with the best hand eye reaction times and concentration is going to make the best wicket keeper.

why could some of the worlds great fielders not make great wicket keepers...after all the hardest catches aren't taken by the wicket keepers.

 

[luckyeddie]

call me ignorant...

Ok, you're ignorant.

What you say is quite correct in part. My old hero Bob Taylor, arguably the greatest wicketkeeper the world has ever seen, used to state categorically that any good slip fielder could don the gloves and do a perfectly acceptable job standing back to the seamers. Standing up to the stumps to a big spinner of the ball, though, is a totally different kettle of fish.

 

[chaminda_00]

because he stands up 2 styris n astle so its very hard to catch the half chances

other keepers seem to do it, im not saying his a crap keeper like Jones and Patel, but his nothing special. Like Sangakkara, his a decent keeper, but slightly below Test standard.

 

[chaminda_00]

Does anyone have McCullums stats for the last 2 years in ODI cricket? if you remove his first 2 years where he was struggling to keep on a dodgy knee.

The stats that cricinfo put together, a couple weeks ago, were based on test stats and i think his only played Tests in the last two years.

 

[Lyell_Chris]

McCullum is the best keeper in NZ atm

 

[Tim]

Best all-round keeper. Arguably Gareth Hopkins is better with the gloves, but batting wise he's miles behind McCullum.

There are a few good ones coming through like Derek De Boorder, Simon Allen & Bradley-John Watling though.

 

[honestbharani]

McCullum doesn' make 2 many mistakes

and he stands up to guys bowling 125 kph

It is easier to stand up to 125 kph up and down bowlers than spinners who bowl anywhere between 70-105 kph with a truckload of variations.

 

[Tim]

But are you a wicket-keeper?

 

[honestbharani]

yes sir, for my school and college and hopefully, for my company as well.

 

[Tim]

fair enough then, i'll take your word for it.

 

[honestbharani]

fair enough then, i'll take your word for it.

it is not just my word. I have had the good fortune to chat up to some cricketers, including Gilchrist, and they think that with a seamer, since the movement is predictable to a great degree, standing up is not such a tough thing, especially with all the protective equipment available. With a spinner, no one is sure how much the ball will turn, not even the bowler. For instance, Shane Warne knows he put in a lot more work to a certain ball so that it will turn more. But even he will not know how much the ball will turn, even to an estimate. That is why keeping to spin, IMO, is tougher. Our spinners aren't the most accurate going around, and it is so tough to keep to them and not give away byes. They don't have any variety, really, but they are so inaccurate that it is a pain to keep to them sometimes. I can only guess how much tougher it would be at the international level, especially since with sweeps and reverse sweeps abound, keepers easily get unsighted.

 

[marc71178]

because he stands up 2 styris n astle so its very hard to catch the half chances

In Test matches this is.