In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a catch, stump the batsman out, or run out a batsman when occasion arises. The wicket-keeper is the only member of the fielding side permitted to wear gloves and external leg guards.[1] The role of the keeper is governed by Law 27 of the Laws of Cricket.[1]

Stance

Initially, during the bowling of the ball the wicket-keeper crouches in a full squatting position but partly stands up as the ball is received. Australian wicket-keeper Sammy Carter (1878 to 1948) was the first to squat on his haunches rather than bend over from the waist (stooping).[2]

Purposes

The keeper's major function is to stop deliveries that pass the batsman (in order to prevent runs being scored as 'byes'), but he can also attempt to dismiss the batsman in various ways:

A keeper's position depends on the bowler: for fast bowling he will squat some distance from the stumps, in order to have time to react to edges from the batsman, while for slower bowling, he will come much nearer to the stumps (known as "standing up"), to pressure the batsman into remaining within the crease or risk being stumped. The more skilled the keeper, the faster the bowling to which he is able to "stand up", for instance Godfrey Evans often stood up to Alec Bedser.[3]

Like the other players on a cricket team the keepers will bat during the team's batting innings. At elite levels, wicket-keepers are generally expected to be proficient batters averaging considerably more than specialist bowlers. This wicket-keeper-batsman form became popular in the 1990s as the Australian national team saw success when elevating Adam Gilchrist to the team after the retirement of Ian Healy. Healy averaged 27.39 and 4,356 runs total from his 119 Test matches, and is viewed as a specialist wicket-keeper who had improved his marginally effective batting toward the end of his career. Gilchrist on the other hand was a dominating, powerful batsman from the start, playing 96 Test matches with a 47.60 average with 5,570 total runs despite playing 23 fewer matches. Gilchrist's success effectively forced the specialist wicket-keeper into extinction at the top levels of the sport as teams could no long afford to pick a mediocre or poor batsman in the position as long as the player who was chosen could perform up to basic standards of the wicket-keeper position when fielding.

Law 27.2, which deals with the specifications for wicketkeepers' gloves, states that:

Substitutes

Substitutes were previously not allowed to keep wicket, but this restriction was lifted in the 2017 edition of the Laws of Cricket.

This rule was sometimes suspended, by agreement with the captain of the batting side. For example, during the England–New Zealand Test match at Lord's in 1986, England's specialist keeper, Bruce French, was injured while batting during England's first innings. England then used four keepers in New Zealand's first innings: Bill Athey kept for the first two overs; 45-year-old veteran Bob Taylor was pulled out of the sponsor's tent to keep for overs 3 to 76; Bobby Parks, the Hampshire keeper, was called up for overs 77 to 140; and Bruce French kept wicket for the final ball of the innings.[4]

Arthur Jones was the first substitute to keep wicket in a Test match, when he did so against Australia at The Oval in 1905.[5] Virat Kohli substituted for keeper MS Dhoni when the latter needed a toilet break during a 2015 ODI match between India and Bangladesh.[6]

Playing without a wicket-keeper

There is no rule stating a team must play with a wicket-keeper.[7] On 5 June 2015 during a T20 Blast game between the Worcestershire Rapids and the Northamptonshire Steelbacks, Worcestershire chose not to play a wicket-keeper in the 16th over of the match. Their keeper, Ben Cox, became an extra fielder at fly slip while spinner Moeen Ali bowled. The umpires consulted with each other and agreed that there was nothing in the Laws to prevent it from happening.[8]

Leading male international wicket-keepers

Test

The following are the top 10 wicket-keepers by total dismissals in Test cricket.[9]

Leading Test match wicket-keepers by dismissals1
Rank Name Country Matches Caught Stumped Total dismissals
1 Mark Boucher  South Africa 147 532 23 555
2 Adam Gilchrist  Australia 96 379 37 416
3 Ian Healy  Australia 119 366 29 395
4 Rod Marsh  Australia 96 343 12 355
5 MS Dhoni  India 90 256 38 294
6 Brad Haddin  Australia 66 262 8 270
Jeff Dujon  West Indies 81 265 5 270
8 Alan Knott  England 95 250 19 269
9 BJ Watling  New Zealand 75 257 8 265
10 Matt Prior  England 79 243 13 256
Statistics are correct as of 11 July 2024
  • Bold indicates current player
  • Matches is the total number of Tests played, which is not necessarily the number of matches keeping wicket.
  • Some of the players listed have additional catches in games they have played as a normal fielder.

ODI

The following are the top wicket-keepers by total dismissals in one day cricket.[10]

Leading one-day wicket-keepers by dismissals
Rank Name Country Matches Caught Stumped Total dismissals
1 Kumar Sangakkara  Sri Lanka 404 383 99 482
2 Adam Gilchrist  Australia 287 417 55 472
3 MS Dhoni  India 350 321 123 444
4 Mark Boucher  South Africa 295 403 22 424
5 Mushfiqur Rahim  Bangladesh 271 237 56 293
6 Moin Khan  Pakistan 219 214 73 287
7 Jos Buttler  England 181 221 37 258
8 Brendon McCullum  New Zealand 260 227 15 242
9 Ian Healy  Australia 168 194 39 233
10 Quinton de Kock  South Africa 155 209 17 226

Statistics are correct as of 11 July 2024

  • Bold indicates current player
  • Matches is the total number of ODIs played, which is not necessarily the number of matches keeping wicket.
  • A number of the players listed have additional catches in games they have played as a normal fielder.

T20I

The following are the top 10 wicket-keepers by total dismissals in Twenty20 International cricket.[11]

Leading T20I wicket-keepers by dismissals
Rank Name Country Matches Caught Stumped Total dismissals
1 Quinton de Kock  South Africa 92 84 18 102
2 MS Dhoni  India 98 57 34 91
3 Irfan Karim  Kenya 58 59 24 83
4 Jos Buttler  England 124 67 13 80
5 Matthew Wade  Australia 92 58 6 64
6 Denesh Ramdin  West Indies 71 43 20 63
7 Mushfiqur Rahim  Bangladesh 102 32 30 62
8 Mohammad Shahzad  Afghanistan 73 33 28 61
9 Kamran Akmal  Pakistan 58 28 32 60
10 Scott Edwards  Netherlands 64 53 7 60

Statistics are correct as of 10 July 2024

  • Bold indicates current player
  • Matches is the total number of T20Is played, which is not necessarily the number of matches keeping wicket.
  • A number of the players listed have additional catches in games they have played as a normal fielder.

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. "Law 27 – The wicket-keeper". MCC. Archived from the original on 1 October 2017.
  2. The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket, Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, p. 100.
  3. "Godfrey Evans". ESPNcricinfo. Archived from the original on 16 October 2014.
  4. "England v New Zealand 1986". ESPNcricinfo. Archived from the original on 20 May 2012.
  5. "The limpet". ESPNcricinfo. 29 July 2008. Archived from the original on 18 August 2017.
  6. "When Kohli Replaced Dhoni as Wicketkeeper for One Over". www.news18.com.
  7. "NatWest T20 Blast video: Worcestershire wicketkeeper Daryl Mitchell moves to outfield". Fox Sports.
  8. "Worcestershire ditch keeper as Dhoni gives idea for controversial ploy". ESPNcricinfo.
  9. "Wicketkeeping Records most Test Match dismissals in a career". ESPNcricinfo.
  10. "Wicketkeeping Records most ODI dismissals in a career". ESPNcricinfo.
  11. "Wicketkeeping Records most T20I Match dismissals in a career". ESPNcricinfo.