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Jones' butter fingers
At a crucial stage in today's match, Geraint Jones dropped Anil Kumble. Jones has
missed stumpings and dolly catches before - he did during the Ashes. But the management insist that he's an important all-round player because he can contribute with the bat. At one point the criticism targeted at Jones got so bad during the Ashes that Andrew Flintoff had to intervene; he told
Channel 4 that Jones had the full support of the dressing room.
England are again paying the price for not having a specialist keeper. Imagine
if Jones had caught Kumble. It could have helped to
turn the outcome of the first Test. It would have been great for the
team's morale as well.
Jones might be handy with the bat but, in tense, knife-edge situations, you need a specialist who is going to snap up simple bread-and-butter chances.
Justin Hunt
March 3, 2006 in English cricket | Permalink | 
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Comments
I think he's picked on too much. He made have made quite a few mistakes during the Ashes, but he did take perhaps the most important, pressurised catch in English Test cricket history. He didn't put it down when it really mattered.
Posted by: Fancyclown | 3 Mar 2006 22:46:09
Yeah, that 2 run win was decided with his catch down the leg side. When you think about it, not many wickies at Test match level can be called superb or brilliant. The top 2 in my opinion are Sangakarra and Akmal; Gilchrist has been dropping clangers for some time now, and Boucher does not keep to top class spinners, same with Ramdin of the Windies.
I think One Day Cricket has a lot to do with the decline of wicket keepers' ability to keep to spin or pace. You don't even have first slips in ODI's most of the time but you have sweepers galore.
Posted by: Feroz Faisal Dawson | 3 Mar 2006 23:05:49
