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| Jos Buttler reopens old divide about role of the specialist wicketkeeper | Jos Buttler reopens old divide about role of the specialist wicketkeeper |
| (2 months later) | |
| It is in the nature of the England cricket team’s Great Summer Of Harrumphing Alienation that even the smallest decision can have a hint of inflammatory urgency. Like a gently simmering marital argument, it is the kind of atmosphere in which suddenly everything seems significant. The precise degree of snap with which you close the fridge door. An offhand remark about tea towels. The choice of words in an apology for a choice of words in a radio interview about the deportment of an ex-employee last winter. You know the kind of thing. Well, I think you do. Fine then. No. I said it’s fine. | It is in the nature of the England cricket team’s Great Summer Of Harrumphing Alienation that even the smallest decision can have a hint of inflammatory urgency. Like a gently simmering marital argument, it is the kind of atmosphere in which suddenly everything seems significant. The precise degree of snap with which you close the fridge door. An offhand remark about tea towels. The choice of words in an apology for a choice of words in a radio interview about the deportment of an ex-employee last winter. You know the kind of thing. Well, I think you do. Fine then. No. I said it’s fine. |
| In this atmosphere of heightened tension, one of the more fascinating aspects of the first England Test squad of the summer against Sri Lanka was the reappearance – with background roles for Jos Buttler, Matt Prior and (weighty symbolic value only) James Foster – of one of English cricket’s most tenacious small-scale obsessions. I’m talking, of course, about wicketkeeping, which in its own quiet fussicky way has always seemed to speak to something tender and bruised within the English cricketing soul, and which has once again been twitching quietly but insistently like a gout-ridden toe. | In this atmosphere of heightened tension, one of the more fascinating aspects of the first England Test squad of the summer against Sri Lanka was the reappearance – with background roles for Jos Buttler, Matt Prior and (weighty symbolic value only) James Foster – of one of English cricket’s most tenacious small-scale obsessions. I’m talking, of course, about wicketkeeping, which in its own quiet fussicky way has always seemed to speak to something tender and bruised within the English cricketing soul, and which has once again been twitching quietly but insistently like a gout-ridden toe. |
| Wicketkeeping is, on the face of it, an odd thing to have powerful feelings about, but the emergence of Buttler in particular has reopened a familiar divide. Let’s face it, Buttler never really stood much chance here given that he transgresses not one but two established genre codes. First he is Not a Proper Wicketkeeper. Second, he is Not a Proper Batsman. And yet there is also a paradox here as despite this double-filtered phoniness, Buttler is at the same time the most obviously authentic, pure English cricketing talent out there, one of those fearless natural ball-players – oh, the tender violence in those hands – whose gifts would stand out in any sport and who simply needs to be encouraged to play, to explore the outer limits of a rare and joyful talent. | Wicketkeeping is, on the face of it, an odd thing to have powerful feelings about, but the emergence of Buttler in particular has reopened a familiar divide. Let’s face it, Buttler never really stood much chance here given that he transgresses not one but two established genre codes. First he is Not a Proper Wicketkeeper. Second, he is Not a Proper Batsman. And yet there is also a paradox here as despite this double-filtered phoniness, Buttler is at the same time the most obviously authentic, pure English cricketing talent out there, one of those fearless natural ball-players – oh, the tender violence in those hands – whose gifts would stand out in any sport and who simply needs to be encouraged to play, to explore the outer limits of a rare and joyful talent. |
| In this case his absence from the Test team is tribute not just to the technical demands of keeping wicket, but to its emotional density. A taste for specialist wicketkeeping – uncut: the pure stuff – is a peculiar kind of English vice in a country where the best tend to have an air of alluringly crankish individualism, engaged in a brown paper and string science of wobble and seam and nip. | In this case his absence from the Test team is tribute not just to the technical demands of keeping wicket, but to its emotional density. A taste for specialist wicketkeeping – uncut: the pure stuff – is a peculiar kind of English vice in a country where the best tend to have an air of alluringly crankish individualism, engaged in a brown paper and string science of wobble and seam and nip. |
| This is part of the beauty of watching a genuinely silky wicketkeeper. One of my own first memories of Test cricket was an astounding catch by Bruce French from an inside edge where he seemed simply to detach his upper body from his legs and feet, diving back the other way like a man sawn in half inside a magician’s box, and taking the ball one-handed with a bizarre nonchalance, as though this kind of flannelled contortionism was simply an everyday occurrence. | |
| It seems fair to say Adam Gilchrist is a pivotal figure in the accelerated modern history of the Campaign For Real Wicketkeeping, the player who first illustrated the largely unattainable truth that being the best No7 in the world is likely to have more bearing on your team’s fortunes than being the best wicketkeeper and helping to flush out into the light an ancient but also unquantifiable craft. | |
| And really it is in part an urge to preserve that lies behind the cult of the wicketkeeper, the same village green protectionism that led to changes to the laws on glove-webbing ratios being hurried through in 2000 at the urging of Bob Taylor amid fears of an influx of giant hostile baseball-style mitts threatening the very future of the wicketkeeping way of life. And in a certain light wicketkeeping looks like the most Ukip-ish of all cricketing activities, a manfully preserved pastoral craft, like playing the lute or hunting foxes or building a wattle and daub wall, a kind of morris dancing with big gloves. In the post-Gilchrist era there has been much diversification. One-day cricket saw the rise of the wicketkeeper-as-scrum-half, keepers who constantly chatter and fidget and scrabble. Playing for England, Paul Nixon resembled a kind of beach cricket pirate, all crow’s nest badinage and salty swagger, while MS Dhoni best illustrates the fact that a simple athletic effectiveness – Dhoni provides a worthy, muscular barrier, as though someone has piled up a mattress behind the stumps – combined with genuine batting skills seems to be enough now in a winning team. | And really it is in part an urge to preserve that lies behind the cult of the wicketkeeper, the same village green protectionism that led to changes to the laws on glove-webbing ratios being hurried through in 2000 at the urging of Bob Taylor amid fears of an influx of giant hostile baseball-style mitts threatening the very future of the wicketkeeping way of life. And in a certain light wicketkeeping looks like the most Ukip-ish of all cricketing activities, a manfully preserved pastoral craft, like playing the lute or hunting foxes or building a wattle and daub wall, a kind of morris dancing with big gloves. In the post-Gilchrist era there has been much diversification. One-day cricket saw the rise of the wicketkeeper-as-scrum-half, keepers who constantly chatter and fidget and scrabble. Playing for England, Paul Nixon resembled a kind of beach cricket pirate, all crow’s nest badinage and salty swagger, while MS Dhoni best illustrates the fact that a simple athletic effectiveness – Dhoni provides a worthy, muscular barrier, as though someone has piled up a mattress behind the stumps – combined with genuine batting skills seems to be enough now in a winning team. |
| In this light the idea that Buttler, soon to be 24, needs to traipse off and spend years working on his wicket-keeping just to get a look in seems a little punitive. But then these are strange times all round for England’s blue-lycra machine. The point many have made is that Buttler, with his joyful, unencumbered batting, offers an easy antidote to the dominant sense of caution and triple-glazed continuity. And yet the separate yearning for an old-school specialist – the likable Foster, good old Chris Read – seems to speak to this same urge for something to latch on to, something to feel drawn in by, a grapple hook across the divide. | In this light the idea that Buttler, soon to be 24, needs to traipse off and spend years working on his wicket-keeping just to get a look in seems a little punitive. But then these are strange times all round for England’s blue-lycra machine. The point many have made is that Buttler, with his joyful, unencumbered batting, offers an easy antidote to the dominant sense of caution and triple-glazed continuity. And yet the separate yearning for an old-school specialist – the likable Foster, good old Chris Read – seems to speak to this same urge for something to latch on to, something to feel drawn in by, a grapple hook across the divide. |
| This England team can often look a little manufactured, with its “brand of cricket”, its mob-handed big data coaching. Whereas the most appealing cricketers have often been the homemade craftsmen, the self-propelling skill merchants. These are the kind of cricketers we want to lose ourselves in, to marvel at fine-point skills and grace that go beyond the simple dynamic of win, lose or draw. | This England team can often look a little manufactured, with its “brand of cricket”, its mob-handed big data coaching. Whereas the most appealing cricketers have often been the homemade craftsmen, the self-propelling skill merchants. These are the kind of cricketers we want to lose ourselves in, to marvel at fine-point skills and grace that go beyond the simple dynamic of win, lose or draw. |
| In fairness Matt Prior, who was once himself distrusted as Not Quite Real, does seem the right choice for now, a compromise candidate and a popular player in his own right. And as ever the wicketkeeper simply looks like remaining a kind of tuning fork for wider anxieties, a conduit at the centre of things, forever menaced by the wider forces of interminable, homogenising modernity. | In fairness Matt Prior, who was once himself distrusted as Not Quite Real, does seem the right choice for now, a compromise candidate and a popular player in his own right. And as ever the wicketkeeper simply looks like remaining a kind of tuning fork for wider anxieties, a conduit at the centre of things, forever menaced by the wider forces of interminable, homogenising modernity. |