Cricket Betting: England's wicket-keeping dilemma

Bat and ball / Andrew Hughes / 12 July 2010 / Leave a Comment

Matt Prior is crucial to England's Ashes hopes

"If Matt Prior were to be injured this summer, would Kieswetter be promoted to the Test side?"

Since the retirement of Alec Stewart, England have struggled to settle on the right wicket keeper and currently find themselves with two different glovemen. Andrew Hughes explains how this has come about and why it is a good thing.

A dual captaincy is commonplace enough in international cricket, but it is a lot rarer to find different wicket keepers employed in different formats of the game. Such arrangements are most likely to occur because a specialist Test keeper is too slow a scorer or too weak a batsman to prosper in the crash-bang-whallop genres. For example, Sri Lanka's Prasanna Jayawardene is first choice in Test cricket whilst Kumar Sangakkara takes the gloves himself in the limited overs version.

But England's current wicket-keeper policy is a more curious one. The days when floppy-hatted eccentric specialist Jack Russell vied with batsman-keeper Alec Stewart for the gloves are a fading memory. It is a matter of modern cricket orthodoxy that an England keeper must be good enough with the bat to hold his own in the top six. Aside from brief and uncommitted flirtations with Chris Read and James Foster, our wicket-keepers of recent vintage have been Stewarts rather than Russells.

So why then do we find ourselves with different glovemen for different formats, when both Craig Kieswetter and Matt Prior are, ostensibly, free-scoring aggressive batsmen who have made themselves into competent keepers? The replacement of Prior by Kieswetter in the limited overs formats might suggest that England's wicket keeper policy is confused, particularly when you consider the handing of international caps to Steve Davies and Tim Ambrose, neither of whom lasted too long.

An alternative view is that Kieswetter is seen as the long term replacement for Prior in the Test team and is being given his chance to acclimatise to international cricket in the shorter versions before being promoted. This view may have something to it, given that Kieswetter is undoubtedly a young cricketer of the highest promise. But Prior's position in the England Test team has only been cemented comparatively recently and at the age of 28 is it really necessary for England to be trialling his successor?

The most plausible explanation for England's wicket-keeper policy is that it has come about as a side effect of the redrawing of their limited overs blueprint. Andy Flower was looking for an explosive batsman to open the innings and Craig Kieswetter, with some astonishing performances in that role for Somerset, fitted the bill. The fact that he also keeps wicket was a welcome bonus but it meant that Matt Prior was no longer required in Twenty20 or fifty over cricket.

This is actually good news for England. Rather than trying to force Prior to play with the same reckless abandon that Kieswetter brought to the Twenty20 team, he is going to be allowed to concentrate on developing as a genuine top six Test match batsman. And in the absence of an all-rounder, it is crucial to the balance of the team that Prior is able to bat at that position, enabling England to field five bowlers, surely a must if they are to upset [1.67] Ashes favourites Australia this winter.

Of course, any selection policy can be thrown off course. If Matt Prior were to be injured this summer, would Kieswetter be promoted to the Test side? He may be considered too young for such a promotion and it would also be a big step up for the next in line Steven Davies. Perhaps in such an eventuality, England might turn, perhaps for the last time, to a genuine wicket keeping specialist in James Foster, considered by some judges to be the best keeper in the world.