On Picking an English Keeper

[Uppercut]

Clearly, and the definition of a missed chance varies. And the listed amount of tests isn't a big enough sample really. And there's no mention at all of byes, didn't Prior concede a record number against India in one particular innings last summer?

 

[zaremba]

My dutiful copying of the byes figures has clearly been wasted...

 

[Uppercut]

My bad.

 

[stumpski]

Didn't Prior concede a record number against India in one particular innings last summer?

That sounds familiar, and he comes out as the worst by same way on that table, averaging 14 a match and the others (Read excepted) between six and eight.

Personally I don't get too concerned about byes, they don't look good admittedly but they don't tend to end up costing you the match. It may be that the keeper is standing up when others would stay back, or keeping to a quick who keeps firing them down the leg side. A lot of those, especially bouncers, get called byes when they perhaps ought to be wides.

 

[zaremba]

There should be a special dispensation for keepers who've had to deal with Harmison and Mahmood.

 

[Uppercut]

That sounds familiar, and he comes out as the worst by same way on that table, averaging 14 a match and the others (Read excepted) between six and eight.

Personally I don't get too concerned about byes, they don't look good admittedly but they don't tend to end up costing you the match. It may be that the keeper is standing up when others would stay back, or keeping to a quick who keeps firing them down the leg side. A lot of those, especially bouncers, get called byes when they perhaps ought to be wides.

All true, but when your other statistical measure is the number of runs scored after someone is dropped they look like a fully reliable indicator of a WK's worth in comparison.

 

[Prince EWS]

Personally I don't get too concerned about byes, they don't look good admittedly but they don't tend to end up costing you the match.

They're an indication of poor wicket keeping though. A keeper who is conceding lots of byes is keeping poorly and invariably put someone down at one point. It's not about the byes themselves; it's about what they show.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Yeah, but if someone is spraying miles outside off or leg then the keeper really doesn't have much of a hope. How often do you see keeper's concede byes when it goes straight through them?

 

[Richard]

Quite often. At a guess I'd say more byes involve little or no wicketkeeper error than involve obvious error. Then there's the tricky ones - the forced errors that you nonetheless expect wicketkeepers not to make.

The only truly fair way to do it (and even this is a little subjective so the contrarions among us would be able to reject it) would be to look at every lot of byes conceded and count only those where there was fault. It would be possible, certainly, but it'd be a laborious task.

Also, byes are a bit like dropped catches. The amount is irrelevant - sometimes you'll fumble and it won't cost anything, sometimes you'll fumble and it'll go for four. The error is the same.

Basically, the only truly fair way to judge a wicketkeeper is to count every single clean take and every single fumble. And the only way to do that is to log every ball of every Test and go through the lot of them.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah, but if someone is spraying miles outside off or leg then the keeper really doesn't have much of a hope. How often do you see keeper's concede byes when it goes straight through them?

Not often, but it's not uncommon to see byes that you think a better keeper may have stopped. Or, conversely, when watching a particularly good keeper, you notice they make a lot of very difficult stops that one would expect to go for byes against most others.

 

[Richard]

didn't Prior concede a record number against India in one particular innings last summer?

Pretty sure it was West Indies, for this reason:

There should be a special dispensation for keepers who've had to deal with Harmison and Mahmood.

Mahmood actually wasn't truly dreadful for a wicketkeeper - mostly he was being smashed by the batsmen. It was Harmison and Plunkett in that one afternoon session in the Old Trafford Test in 2007 that caused the unusual problems. I reported that day's play, and here's my best attempt at summarising the extraordinary action I'd witnessed.

Originally Posted by My Match Summary
Monty Panesar and Ryan Sidebottom scythed through West Indies' lower-order to put their team in a commanding position after day two of the Third Test. England closed with 9 wickets intact and a lead of 175, despite a day when their bowling attack at times threatened total breakdown. Especially in the second session, Stephen Harmison and Liam Plunkett mostly gave the impression that they simply did not have a clue where the ball was going, and West Indies' middle-order capitalised. Thanks to the two left-armers, though, they got out of jail.

I'm furious with myself on the relatively rare occasions I bowl that poorly. To see two professionals, who are supposedly at the top of their trade, do that throughout a lengthy spell, is something I never expect to see again. I'd not even be surprised if I never saw one bowler at such a supposed level do it again.

 

[Golaxi]

Prior

seing as Prior has the kind of average english test batsmen have been missing for a while i would like to see him being given a very lengthy run.

Chris Read done absolutely nothing to be dropped????

give Prior a long run

 

[Neil Pickup]

seing as Prior has the kind of average english test batsmen have been missing for a while i would like to see him being given a very lengthy run.

Chris Read done absolutely nothing to be dropped????

give Prior a long run

Problem (A): Prior cannot reliably catch

Problem (B): Read cannot reliably bat

Problem (C): Read played ICL

 

[zaremba]

Another century for Prior today. All eyes on Tim Ambrose tomorrow.

 

[Goughy]

Another century for Prior today. All eyes on Tim Ambrose tomorrow.

Though based on the logic of why he was dropped, he could score 1500 CC runs this season at an average of 100 and it shouldnt matter.

Runs were never the problem, as we all know his keeping was.

 

[zaremba]

I know, but that doesn't mean the selectors won't do it.

They have a problem: they want to pick Freddie but now recognise (at last) that he's not a Test number 6. They are now in the process of finding out that Ambrose is also not a Test number 6.

However they will be painfully aware that there is one keeper/batsman who is a Test number 6 and that's Matt Prior.

So they will be sorely tempted to pick him, and hope he doesn't mess up with the gloves as he did in 2 of his 10 Test matches so far.

If he's not picked in this Test series, I expect he will be picked for the winter tour as batsman / reserve keeper a la Alec Stewart in the Caribbean in 1990.

 

[Richard]

In some ways I almost wish Prior would play against the SAfricans - I just don't see him scoring runs against seam-bowling of this calibre. Maybe then we might realise that his batting is not quite all it's cracked-up to be.

BTW Prior today scored in a one-day game. I know that has real rarity value given how generally poor his one-day batting has been, but it shouldn't impact on Test selection one iyota.

 

[opener]

However they will be painfully aware that there is one keeper/batsman who is a Test number 6 and that's Matt Prior.
.

Why's that, because he'd come in with about 400 already on the board and slog a crap, deflated Windies attack around at home with no pressure?

I don't remember him doing anything else with the bat aside from looking as clueless as any of the recent keepers have, when India exposed him with the bat and he dropped everything.

 

[zaremba]

Why's that, because he'd come in with about 400 already on the board and slog a crap, deflated Windies attack around at home with no pressure?

No pressure? It was his Test debut! If he felt no pressure in that situation then he's the sort of player England needs.

I don't remember him doing anything else with the bat aside from looking as clueless as any of the recent keepers have, when India exposed him and he dropped everything.

You're right, he had one poor Test with the gloves against India, and got pilloried for it.

As for his batting you may be forgetting the fact that he was just about England's best batsman in the series in Sri Lanka against an attack which featured Vaas, Malinga and Muralitharan.

After 3 Test series he has a batting average of over 40, which is what you want from a top 6 batsman. He's also the leading English batsman in Div 1 of the County Championship this season.

 

[Richard]

This "opener" is surely at least worth an IP-trace? It's not yet worth a picture because I'm far less sure than I have been on many other occasions (might remind you I got the most recent one after 1 post... despite being about a year out of practice) but I've been wondering pretty much from the first post.