Paine one of our all-time keeper batsmen according to this article.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/keeping-his-spot-paine-deserves-place-on-podium-in-debate-over-best-batting-wicketkeepers-20201221-p56pb3.html

Does this lack nuance? The sample is relatively small compared with Haddin, Healy and Marsh for instance.

He was crap in the Ashes and only averages 28 as captain.

His lack of left side limits any claim beyond average as a keeper.

That his batting average eclipses Haddit should really not surprise.

He's been great since the ball-tampering affair.

Well, given sub-30 averages were pretty standard for keepers in the pre-Gilchrist era, virtually anyone who’s played this millennium will be a top “keeper-batsman”.

beamer wrote:Well, given sub-30 averages were pretty standard for keepers in the pre-Gilchrist era, virtually anyone who’s played this millennium will be a top “keeper-batsman”.

There were others Denis Lyndsay (sp?) before SA was admitted to Test cricket was one. Dujon was a wonderful batsman and a damned good keeper.

Well, obviously there were some, but I’d imagine the benchmark batting average for a keeper has increased by at least 10 runs in the last 20 years or so.

Agree beams.

However, Gilchrist broke the mould for what is required from a wicketkeeper.

I doubt I will see in my lifetime (I'm well past halfway) anybody to rival Gilly.

As I was with Warnie, the Waughs, Punter, Pidge and Haydos, I am deeply grateful to have witnessed the Test career of Adam Gilchrist.

Yeah, and to have all those seven in one team, which was ridiculous. And the rest weren’t exactly bad (Langer, Gillespie etc...)

There might not be another Gilchrist, but there are plenty of imitators. Everyone wants a keeper-batsman who can average 40+ at number 7 or above and can take the game to a tiring attack, and there have been plenty, with varying degrees of success. Not saying he wasn’t a good keeper, but he was probably responsible for teams wanting a batsman who can keep, rather than a keeper who may be just about adequate with the bat.

I have mentioned this before but the wicketkeepers who played for NSW in the Sheffield Shield between 1938/39 & 1973/74 achieved little with bat but admittedly a lot of bowlers in those teams were very good batsmen - Miller, Benaud, Davidson, Lindwall, etc

Code:

Sismey, SG 19 29 10 30 227 _ _ 11.95 64 3 1938/39 1950/51
Lambert, O 21 26 10 15 92 _ _ 5.62 45 13 1950/51 1956/57
Trueman, GS 21 24 7 16 127 _ _ 7.47 54 13 1951/52 1953/54
Ford, DA 56 61 22 36* 521 _ _ 13.36 107 51 1957/58 1963/64
Taber, HB 64 100 17 109 1377 1 4 16.59 177 33 1964/65 1973/74
Hendricks, M 8 13 3 32 116 _ _ 11.60 27 9 1969/70 1969/70


Apologies for the formatting.

beamer wrote:Yeah, and to have all those seven in one team, which was ridiculous. And the rest weren’t exactly bad (Langer, Gillespie etc...)

There might not be another Gilchrist, but there are plenty of imitators. Everyone wants a keeper-batsman who can average 40+ at number 7 or above and can take the game to a tiring attack, and there have been plenty, with varying degrees of success. Not saying he wasn’t a good keeper, but he was probably responsible for teams wanting a batsman who can keep, rather than a keeper who may be just about adequate with the bat.

Give me Grout of the peerless Tallon or even Jordan and Maddox ahead of those dross weasels.

Former Victorian keeper* gives his perspective, two months ago …

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/12/22/former-first-class-keeper-names-his-best-pure-glovemen-in-australian-cricket/

* = not horrie


Rates Carey narrowly ahead of Inglis and Peirson on keeping ability alone. Did not rate Harper highly, let alone mention Wade, McDermott, Phillippe, Whiteman. Bancroft, or Handscomb.

lardbucket wrote:Former Victorian keeper* gives his perspective, two months ago …

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/12/22/former-first-class-keeper-names-his-best-pure-glovemen-in-australian-cricket/

* = not horrie


Rates Carey narrowly ahead of Inglis and Peirson on keeping ability alone. Did not rate Harper highly, let alone mention Wade, McDermott, Phillippe, Whiteman. Bancroft, or Handscomb.

I did laugh!

Crossy is a sharp but gentle judge. Fwiw I agree with his rankings but but have JP well ahead of Inglis as a keeper.

I’d agree with that. Peirson, like Anderson and Seccombe before him, perhaps Darren Berry as well, has suffered from perceptions that there have been keepers ALMOST as good who were much better bats.

Paine was an adequate keeper and handy bat before they dumped the captaincy in his lap - then he became Exhibit A for the 'you can't both kip and skeep' trope which not even the late R.W. Marsh could find his way past.
After the Stokes Choke (I hate the word with a passion but there is no other) he rallied the team to win at OT a week later (a feat not to be sneezed at) but that proved his Last, as well as finest, Great Act Of Defiance, and by the time he got his marching orders he was barely leaving any size hole at all.

lardbucket wrote:I’d agree with that. Peirson, like Anderson and Seccombe before him, perhaps Darren Berry as well, has suffered from perceptions that there have been keepers ALMOST as good who were much better bats.

Suggest that was also what got Steve Rixon the gig over John McLean for the first WSC summer. Mac was a tad unlucky that Marsh overtook him sometime in the 1970 winter, during which time neither of them actually played any cricket at all, but by the time the job came up again seven years later he was hopeless against spin no matter whether the stumps were behind or in front of him.

Rixon was an excellent gloveman, though. He did not bat strongly and I think your assessment of 78-9 decision is correct. With hindsight Maclean probably should never have played.

Kevin Wright was around at that time and squeezed in a couple of appearances too.

So how did our 11th best batsman in the 1989 Ashes, still very much a WIP as a keeper, avoid hard questions? (Besides winning covering the usual multitude, and the main competition being Tim somebody, who made the other aforementioned Tim somebody look like Grout?)

I think winning probably helped a lot.

The other Tim was pretty slick behind the stumps but my understanding is that he upset his coach and some of his team mates along the way!