While I agree with you that that aspect of Priors game is irritating, if he did that and was named Chris Read, then Rachael would have no problem at all with him at all.

The comments from Rachael are based on what she has read and listened to about the quality of his keeping, I doubt for one minute she has ever actually seen him play, and if Prior walked past her in the street, she probably wouldn't actually recognise him (even if he had his Cricket whites on)!!

flanflinger, you're a bad man!!

When he got the left glove to it, it was heading about four foot to slip's right side. When he finished his roll, combined with him clutching at it with the other hand, he was in front of first slip. I've seen it several times and I am under no doubt it was his catch, although he should have been able to take it with two (although it did fly quite quickly)

Evans used to get a lot of stick for exactly that: dig around a little and you'll soon find comments about him making eye catching leaps for the ball to take a ball a keeper with great footwork (like Keith Andrew) would have taken on the walk. Athleticism was also what Dujon relied upon: like Evans.. he was damn good at acrobatic takes... better than you might guess just from listening to him talk of his craft - but he knew damn well that his athletic takes were not always what he'd have chosen to resort to had his footwork been better.

Your choices illustrate your point excellently... but not EVERY 'keeper goes for diving, one-handed takes that are at least going close enough to 1st slip for 1st slip to feel it could have been his.

ps. The main thing with takes on the side of the slips is surely that all concerned know what is, and what is not, the 1st-slip's catch: Read and Tresco had communications problems over that... and when, in his final few games in England, Read showed the discipline to leave balls... 1st slip (Tresco, I think, and perhaps used to Jones leaping for everything) was found to be anything BUT on the same wavelength.

How many times have you seen Keith Andrew keep wicket?

Listen, when it comes to pace bowlers, Dujon had EXCELLENT footwork.

He moved and then dived. Attempts to portray him as solely athletic or in possession of poor footwork are misguided. This man wasn't keeping to trundlers and average seamers.

Probably the same number of times she has seen Matt Prior Keep...

Interesting write up on CricInfo

For me the use of the word Competent does not to me say that he was something exceptional!!

Well I haven't seen the catch... but this is from someone who did

Cricinfo - Prior's nifty footwork and Harmy's wait

Can't ask for anything more than an excellent piece of glovework,twice in this series he has caught very good catches which he hasn't received any praise for from a certain person.

Lots of observers... including many who knew lots about batting and bowling... rated Evans extremely highly... and even as England's greatest ever gloveman: the fact that he worked so effectively with Bedser helped... but the harsh reality is that most non-wicket-keepers wouldn't have had the technical insight to discriminate between Evans being good but a bit too flash and someone like Keith Andrew doing the job better.

Same with batting and bowling, really: few have the technical insight to discriminate between the very good and the truly special.

Case in point: how many observers tend to view Sangakkara as Sri Lanka's most accomplished batsman, and the lynchpin of a side of otherwise pretty ordinary willow-wielders?Any fool can observe, only those who work hard at learning to appreciate what is before them have any real appreciation what it is that they see. I find very few commentators on TV or the radio fall into the latter category when it comes to glovework.

See Cricket: Complete Sangakkara puts self-doubt to the sword | Sport | The Observer

ps. See also http://world-a-team.com/the-backroom...t-batting.html

Rachael,

I am very sorry, but what has any of this got to do with whether Matt Prior did a decent job with the bat and with the gloves???

I give credit where credit is due, he performed well, and from what I have read most observers (at the game as opposed to several thousand miles away on a PC reading CricInfo) seemed to agree upon this.

Prior is not the best Keeper around at the moment, he is not as good as Read and certainly not as good as Evans, Russell etc... but he is doing a job where it counts and doing it well, so that deserves some credit, it is to your discredit as someone with such obvious knowledge, that you are sadly unable to type those words into a computer..