Matt Prior has the right stuff

TWO former wicketkeepers in the England set-up couldn’t have got it wrong.

The issue of who will keep wickets for England has been resolved for the time being at least with the excellent debut by Matt Prior against the West Indies at Lord’s in the First Test.
Both England coach Peter Moores, a successful wicketkeeper with Sussex, and Andy Flower, former Zimbabwe stumper, know a thing or two about wicketkeeping. So when Moores chose Prior over the incumbent Chris Read and favourite Paul Nixon, there were some doubts raised about the issue.
The fact that Moores knew Prior well and both hailed from Sussex were pointed as some sort of bias. But the new England coach backed his hunch and the rest is history.
Prior’s century on debut was a commendable, historic effort. No other England wicketkeeper ever got a hundred on debut and the nearest was Jack Russell’s 94 as a nighwatchman.
Prior admits that he loves to bat and this was evident in the manner in which he got his runs. He was totally assured at the crease and remained aggressive throughout his innings.
Though there were four hundreds in the England first innings, the one by Prior stood out. The fluency of his strokeplay was a joy to watch.
Prior’s wicketkeeping also won praise. With England’s opening bowlers Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett totally wayward in the West Indian first innings, Prior had to display his acrobatic skills at regular intervals.
His collection of the ball diving full length on the leg side must have won him few nods from the purists. Prior also exercised his vocal chords to the fullest to lift up the team.
It seems that after the exit of Alec Stewart, England have at last found a wicketkeeper who can double up as a top order batsman. Stewart also happens to be a mentor to Prior and this will surely help him in the long run.
One must spare a thought for the two wicketkeepers who missed out. Read once again lost out due to his lesser batting ability. His wicketkeeping has been good in the last few Tests he played but his batting rarely measured up to Test standard.
Read put in a lot of hard work when he was out of the England frame to improve his batting.
Last year, he scored big centuries in first class matches and finally managed to dislodge the out-of-form Geraint Jones during the home and later the Ashes series.
Though highly overrated by some English writers, Read is a certainly a world-class keeper. He is certainly not the best keeper in world as touted by some English writers. That would be an insult to wicketkeepers like Adam Gilchrist, Mark Boucher and Brendon McCallum.
Nixon did a great job for England in the World Cup. He kept excellently, batted with spirit in the lower order and kept the buzz going with his vocal support.
Probably age and lesser batting ability than Prior cost Nixon a Test debut. At 36, Nixon would not be an ideal choice with Moores eyeing the future.
Still Nixon thoroughly deserves an England Test cap which may now never come unless Prior gets injured.
Read’s continued exclusion once again reaffirms the new mantra in world cricket – players have to be as multi-dimensional as possible. The wicketkeeper must be able to bat a bit and so must the bowlers. No wonder, there are very few genuine tailenders left in the game. Even Russell and Bob Taylor, two former England keepers, eked out a fairly decent Test average to add to their superb wicketkeeping abilities.
Russell, who was consistently overlooked for his poor batting, actually scored his maiden first class century in a Test match. Taylor missed one by just three runs.
England were always blessed with wicketkeepers who were very good batsmen. Les Ames, Godfrey Evans, Jim Parks, John Murray, Alan Knott and Stewart were good enough to find a place as a batsman alone.
Read’s case always brings to mind the misfortune of former Northamptonshire wicketkeeper Keith Andrew, who played first class cricket from 1952 to 1966.
Considered as one of the finest in his craft, Andrew played only twice for England.
The reason was simple – an average of just 13 over 390 matches with only three fifties did not help his cause. Evans, Parks and Murray always got the nod
It seems clear from  Moores’ initial forays as coach that he expects his wicketkeeper to bat as well. Read will have to go back to the drawing board and learn some more about the art of batting.
At least his batting has shown improvement from before. Now he has to raise it to another level. Sport can be cruel but one of its basic rules is – never give up.

By Babu Kalyanpur
babu.kallianpur@tradearabia.net