Cricket World Cup 2011: Matt Prior recalled to one-day squad as wicketkeeping issue continues to blight England

Cricket World Cup 2011: Matt Prior recalled to one-day squad as wicketkeeping issue continues to blight England
What is it with England’s wicketkeepers? Asked about his latest U-turn on the issue, Andy Flower replied “We’ve tried three keepers over the last year and none has grabbed the opportunity with both hands.” It sounded like a pun, except that he was deadly serious.
In the short term, the decision to recall Matt Prior for England’s World Cup squad was a surprise, considering that Steven Davies was probably only one decent innings away from bagging that spot. And yet, it fits in with all the horse-trading that has surrounded the keeper’s position over the last eight years.
Since Alec Stewart retired, this has been the insoluble problem of English cricket: the sporting equivalent of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Eight different men have worn the gloves, or nine if you count James Foster’s outing during the World Twenty20. Include emergency fill-ins like Vikram Solanki, Marcus Trescothick and Eoin Morgan and you have a full XI, plus a 12th man to carry the drinks.
Flower - himself a wicketkeeper-batsman of the highest class - clearly feels that the onus is on the individual to nail down the position. He looked irritated when asked if England were being indecisive.
“Selection is not an exact science, is it?” Flower replied. “Before the Pakistan series, Davies was in superb form. He had scored a lot of runs for Surrey, and scored them quickly. He was given a chance to establish himself as our wicketkeeper-batsman. In our opinion, he hasn’t done that well enough.
“There’s a few things that have developed in the interim: Prior’s good form towards the end of the Test series, his performance with the gloves, and our judgement that we see him being more useful in the sub-continent than Steven. We think Prior is a stronger hitter of the ball, especially down the ground, and probably a better player of spin.”
The change of tack is a big call at this late stage. A brave call, too. But then, Flower and his fellow selectors have got much more right over the last two years than they have got wrong.
Yes, Davies is talented. Yes, he averages 35 from his seven 50-over internationals (a far better figure than Prior’s 25), and he strikes the ball with a silky flair that sets the pundits drooling. But there is also a flakiness to his batting that was evident in Sunday’s first 50-over international in Melbourne, when he used up five lives in scoring 42.
Prior has failed before in the England one-day side, going in everywhere from No 2 to No 7. In the past, he has been guilty of over-eagerness, dashing out of the gate and rushing to 20 or 30 before getting carried away. If he ate like he batted, you would say that his eyes were too big for his stomach.
Prior himself admits this charge, but believes he is now mature enough to hold back from the feast. “I have never been one to make excuses about anything but I was never certain where I was batting,” he said. “When I opened I went out with that pinch hitter mentality. I didn’t fail often, but because I was a bit naïve I would play one shot too many. I hope I have learned when to play the big shot or rein it in a little bit.”
If he is right, Prior can square the circle by unifying the wicketkeeper’s role across all three codes of the game, like a boxer collecting all the available belts. He is also a louder and bolder personality than the diffident Davies. In Flower’s words, “Prior is more energetic, and suits the high-energy fielding game that the team has developed over the last couple of years.”
Where will Prior bat? His preference is to open, and that is also what Flower suggested. Yet there is an alternative. Unlike Davies, whose elegant front-foot driving is most effective when the ball is still hard, Prior could potentially act as a middle-order detonator.
If he did go in further down, perhaps at No 6, Prior would clear the way for Ian Bell - perhaps England’s purest shotmaker - to open the innings with Andrew Strauss, In the sub-continent, the onus is on the top three to score the bulk of the runs. And Bell, at the moment, is purring along like a classic car.
The other close call in the England squad put Luke Wright up against Chris Tremlett. It was Wright who won inclusion, but he is unlikely to be anything more than emergency cover, in case one of the other allrounders wakes up with the lurgie.
Tremlett did not make it, leaving the team with only one spare fast bowler in Ajmal Shahzad. While Flower indicated that he would be high up the list if any injury replacements are required, it was still not a great day for the Surrey pair.
Where’s new smart Alec?
Alec Stewart played in 170 one-day internationals for England from 1989-2003, averaging 31.6 with the bat, taking 159 catches and making 15 stumpings. Nine wicketkeepers have been used in the eight subsequent years, to varying degrees of success
Games Bat Av C St
Matt Prior 55 25.38 60 4
Geraint Jones 49 24.7 68 4
Chris Read 36 17.6 41 2
Paul Nixon 19 21.2 20 3
Craig Kieswetter 12 26.6 11 2
Phil Mustard 10 23.3 9 2
James Foster 11 13.6 13 7
Steven Davies 7 34.8 8 0
Tim Ambrose 5 2.5 3 0

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