Published: Jul 25, 2011, 11:33 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 10, 2014, 04:11 PM (IST)
By Adrian Meredith
If you look at the statistics, Adam Gilchrist and Mark Boucher are ranked numbers one and two. For the sake of argument, I will compare them with Ian Healy, Rod Marsh and Alan Knott – three names that a section of the cricket fans suggest are better.
| Name | Tests | Ct | St | Dismissals | Avg Dismissals/Test |
| M Boucher | 139 | 499 | 22 | 521 | 3.75 |
| A Gilchrist | 96 | 379 | 37 | 416 | 4.33 |
| I Healy | 119 | 366 | 29 | 395 | 3.32 |
| R Marsh | 96 | 343 | 12 | 355 | 3.70 |
| A Knott | 95 | 250 | 19 | 269 | 2.83 |
| Name | ODIs | Ct | St | Dismissals | Avg Dismissals/ODI |
| A Gilchrist | 287 | 417 | 55 | 472 | 1.64 |
| M Boucher | 292 | 400 | 22 | 422 | 1.44 |
| I Healy | 168 | 194 | 39 | 233 | 1.39 |
| R Marsh | 92 | 120 | 4 | 124 | 1.35 |
| A Knott | 20 | 15 | 1 | 16 | 0.80 |
If you see the above stats, Gilchrist played 96 Tests and Knott just one fewer. Yet Gilchrist’s tally of dismissals was 416, compared to Knott’s 269. That is a massive difference.
There are arguments to suggest that the numbers don’t speak the truth. Allow me to go over them.
Being in a better team
With the exception of Ian Healy, all of the ‘keepers listed above were in teams that were amongst the best in the world at the time. Healy, at the start of his career, was in a very weak team and hence his numbers are perhaps a bit lower than they should be. But Rod Marsh has no such excuse and certainly not Alan Knott, who was involved in England cricket during a time when they were right up there with the West Indies and Australia as virtually equal best team in the world. Indeed, even Healy, who started out with a weak team, ended up in a team who were dominant and played most of his career in what was a very good team.
Having the luxury of lots of fast bowlers
Of the players listed above, Gilchrist has a higher percentage of stumpings in his dismissal count, with Ian Healy second. The lowest of the lot was Rod Marsh, but second lowest is Alan Knott. Yes, Knott was fabled for his keeping to the spinner Derek Underwood, who was supposedly difficult to keep to, but he didn’t manage a lot of stumpings off him. Yet Gilchrist effected a lot of stumping off Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill.
Boucher and Gilchrist dropped a lot of catches
Mark Boucher has never been dropped from the South African team based on form, but always for political reasons, as he has always – and still is now – been the best keeper in South Africa and indeed has always been either the best or second-best keeper in the world for his entire career, currently rated as the best ‘keeper in world cricket as Gilchrist has retired. The few catches he missed were not exactly easy. Adam Gilchrist ended his career because he had a bad series in which he dropped four catches, one of them simple. But yet Rod Marsh was named “Iron Gloves” because he was so bad at keeping early in his career, while Ian Healy was, if anything, worse. The only one who by reputation, apparently, dropped fewer catches was Alan Knott, based on the quote: “Knott never looked like much of a keeper, but if you asked anyone they never saw him drop one”.
Older ‘keepers were better
Cricket pre-1984 or so was primarily an amateur game (except for county cricket in England) and hence players had to hold down full-time jobs in order to afford to play cricket. Batting was harder earlier on while bowling was easier. But from all reports the quality of batting and bowling is about the same now as it was then. But the big difference is in fielding and running between wickets. Jonty Rhodes is indisputably the greatest fielder of all time, the likes of Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor and Rahul Dravid are some of the best slips fielders of all time, while Herschelle Gibbs and Ricky Ponting are two of the best cover fielders of all time. While there were a few good ones here and there, it wasn’t often and fielding tended to be lazy. Thus, in working out the best fielders of all time, recent bias is legitimate because the professionalism of cricket means better fielding and better running between the wickets (which cancel each other out in terms of total runs etc) and means that the best fielders of all time are primarily going to be from the past 25 years or so. Thus, considering ‘keepers from the 1920s is probably going to be fairly pointless as the likelihood is that they didn’t leap as far and simply didn’t get to balls that today would be considered to be dollies or simple catches.
Statistics mean nothing with ‘keeping; it is all about performance
If you ask who is the best ‘keeper in their country, the answer will differ depending on who they like the most which could depend on where they live. Largely because most Australian cricket viewers only watch international matches, most think that either Tim Paine or Brad Haddin are the best, totally ignoring the two leading dismissal takers in domestic cricket in Chris Hartley and Matthew Wade, who have missed out largely due to their lack of batting ability. And this is the case all over the world. One will argue one way while the other will argue another way. Invariably, their batting ability, which is more tangible, is added to the equation. And yet when looking at the best slips fielders, we invariably go back to Mark Taylor, Mark Waugh or Rahul Dravid, the three with the most catches and the most numbers of catches per match. So why are we doing that if we ignore that statistic for ‘keepers?
Boucher, and especially Gilchrist, were keeper/batsmen not just ‘keepers
It is fair to say that Boucher, and especially Gilchrist, could bat. Gilchrist, for most of his career, was ranked in the top five batsmen in ODIs and for a long time his Test batting average was over 60, though he finished in mid-40s. He was at one point ranked No 1 batsman in Tests. But does that make them weak “keepers? Hardly. Garfield Sobers was an all-rounder but was still ranked No 1 in the world as a batsman. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Plenty of ‘keepers have averaged over 50 in Test cricket, but their brilliance in front of the wicket was not seen behind the wicket. Andy Flower in particular was a horrible ‘keeper, while Rahul Dravid and Alec Stewart (the latter only averaged over 40) also kept at times and were horrible at it. Nobody tries to suggest that Rahul Dravid or Alec Stewart or Andy Flower were the best ‘keeper of all time, just because their batting was good.
How come Knott isn’t the best if nobody saw him drop any?
I can’t answer why that quote exists, but I can compare it to a quote about WG Grace that he once was clean bowled, calmly replaced the bails and said that there was a wind blowing. The story about Grace actually came about because of a dispute between amateurs and professionals in county cricket whereby the amateurs called the professionals cheats for playing for money and invented that rumour to support it. So it is most likely that this rumour about Alan Knott was invented to try to support him being ranked as one of the best ‘keepers, even though the statistics suggest that he was very ordinary as an international wicket keeper.
Shane Warne said that Adam Gilchrist wasn’t as good a keeper as Ian Healy and said that Gilchrist was a keeper/batsman only
Shane Warne also said that Steve Waugh was a bad captain because he told Warne what to do, said that John Buchanan was a bad coach (for the same reason), said that Michael Beer was the next big thing in spin bowling, and, generally, says a lot of things that have no basis in reality. The simple fact is that Shane Warne learned to bowl spin to a good level with Ian Healy as his keeper, with Healy learning to keep to spin bowling at the same time that Warne was learning to spin to a good level. They built up a relationship alongside that, similar to Rod Marsh’s relationship with Dennis Lillee or Alan Knott’s relationship with Derek Underwood. It didn’t mean that Healy was any better than Gilchrist but rather that Warne liked Healy more. Gilchrist’s record in keeping to Warne was actually significantly better than Healy’s.
Alan Knott was good because he was the only ‘keeper who could keep to Derek Underwood
Derek Underwood and Alan Knott played cricket together at county level and, after a great series before his Test debut, Underwood failed in his first few Tests and begged for Alan Knott to keep to him. When Underwood did well, living up to the promise he showed in first class cricket, he credited Knott. Thus, almost certainly it was more about them being friends and trying to help each other out than about Knott being a better keeper. Other bowlers didn’t say that Knott was great, the same as how other bowlers didn’t rank Healy as ahead of Gilchrist – Glenn McGrath went on record saying that Gilchrist was significantly better. Just because one bowler likes a particular wicket keeper doesn’t make that wicket keeper better. It just makes Knott better at being Underwood’s friend.
Gilchrist and Boucher had the luxury of lot of fast bowlers knicking simple edges behind
Actually the keeper with the most caught behinds off a single bowler is Rod Marsh – the bowler being Lillee. Both Boucher and Gilchrist had to work with a variety of different bowlers, including a lot more spinners than Marsh or Healy or even Knott had to deal with, as evidenced by their higher proportion of stumpings. Many of the edges behind were far from simple and, as stated earlier, keeping standards now are a lot higher than they used to be, which, quite simply, means that Boucher and Gilchrist moved a lot more before the ball got to them. This is highlighted by a keeper like Brad Haddin, who often watches balls fly over his shoulder. It doesn’t count as a drop but other keepers would have at least gone for the catch. Boucher and Gilchrist always go for catches, which means that they end up with more catches, but also get a few difficult drops to go alongside that. The lesser keepers don’t even bother going for them.
Is Boucher better than Gilchrist?
Gilchrist had to wait for some four years between his first class debut and finally getting a chance in one-day cricket, in spite of being the best ‘keeper in the country for that entire four-year period, then had to wait for an extra 3 1/2 years before he got his Test debut. That is a lot of waiting. He also had the burden of opening the batting in ODIs and in Tests he was at various points Australia’s best batsman, and certainly a lot better than most players batting at No 7 for their country. But Boucher has dealt with a lot of politics at South Africa, where he has lost his place several times for politics, either because of the selection policy to include blacks and coloured players, or the idea that they’d rather use AB de Villiers in ODIs so that they can squeeze another player in. Gilchrist had to wait a long time, but Boucher has been treated really badly at various times, with really precious little thanks for all of his work.
There is an argument that Boucher is better than Gilchrist. He has more Test dismissals and overall more international dismissals. Most would probably put Gilchrist ahead, but it isn’t ridiculous to list Boucher as superior. It is kind of like Lohmann vs Barnes as the greatest ever bowler or Warne vs Murali as the greatest ever spinner. Or, indeed, Tendulkar vs Lara as the best batsman of the professional era (the past 25 years). But throwing other names in, like Healy, Marsh or Knott, is foolish, and based on emotion rather than on the simple facts.
It isn’t just total number of dismissals or dismissals/match that put Gilchrist and Boucher ahead of their competitors but also their records for most dismissals in an innings and match. They had some amazing performances and won man of the match awards for their keeping alone. They pulled off some screamers and some incredible stumpings too.
There is just no sensible argument to suggest that anyone else is the best of all time. Either Gilchrist or Boucher. Daylight comes in third.
(Adrian Meredith, an Australian from Melbourne, has been very passionate about cricket since he was seven years old. Because of physical challenges he could not pursue playing the game he so dearly loved. He loves all kinds of cricket – from Tests, ODIs, T20 – at all levels and in all countries and writes extensively on the game)
