Paul Lewis: Keeper decision is Wright

BJ Watling is an opening bat and can keep wicket. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Some of the traditionalists in New Zealand cricket need to pull their heads in.

So what if Black Caps coach John Wright is giving an unrecognised wicketkeeper - BJ Watling - a trial behind the stumps?

Basic cricketing practice says you select your best gloveman, as he is the most important fieldsman - a weapon used to take advantage of the slightest mistake by a batsman.

Fair enough, too. In most instances, that approach is correct. A wicketkeeping error can spell the difference between winning or losing.

Watling's selection against Zimbabwe - assuming he plays - is being regarded by many traditionalists as a horror because he is not a specialist wicketkeeper and the more trenchant critics say he is not even as good a batsman as Kruger van Wyk.

Hang on a moment. Wright is in the process of re-angling the Black Caps. Whatever approach has been used in the past hasn't really worked. Take a gander at New Zealand's rather pathetic test record over the past five or six years if you don't believe me. It looks like the wreck of the Costa Concordia minus the deaths and the cowardly custard captain.

Our best wicketkeeper - Brendon McCullum - isn't being selected anyway. He either can't or won't play there - and everyone recognises that the balance of the New Zealand team is better when he keeps wicket, as it allows the selectors to fit in an extra bat, allrounder or bowler, depending on circumstances.

Wright, after the Triumph In Tasmania, has hit on a scheme which looks promising for the Blacks Caps. He is keen to play four quick bowlers, as he did against Australia for that epic test victory. That means a specialist wicketkeeper who does not provide a lot of runs is a luxury this team struggles to afford and it piles more pressure on a top six who in recent years have not coped all that well when the squeeze goes on.

That is where Watling comes in. An opening bat by trade, he is a part-time wicketkeeper and one in whom Wright sees something. Technically, he looks like he should prosper at test level. Practically, he hasn't - averaging about 24 runs at bat over six tests. Tried and failed, say the traditionalists, get someone else.

But it often takes time to cement one's place when taking the large step to test level.

New Zealand play so few test matches - where was a visiting team over Christmas/New Year, NZ Cricket? - and there are so few alternatives that people like Wright have little option but to experiment in test matches.

We should thank our lucky stars that the next opponent is Zimbabwe and not South Africa straight away - where Watling would be thrown in front of an impressive array of Bok fast bowlers who, lest we forget, reduced the mighty Australians to all out for 47 not so long ago.

No, if Wright persists with Watling, then he should be congratulated for backing his opinion and his man - particularly if Watling comes off. If not, then clearly van Wyk is next cab off the rank.

What is wrong with this? The gap between first-class cricket and the test arena is more of a chasm, really, and the art of being a cricket selector is not just about assessing averages and other statistics. It is also about being able to recognise players who can foot it at test level when their first-class records may not suggest it. Examples: Jeremy Coney and Andrew Jones. Neither would have been selected on form or maybe even technique for test level and yet both occupy a special place in New Zealand's test cricket pantheon.

Wright is clearly hoping to manufacture another such player (though Watling has sound technique but has yet to prove he has the stickability and shot-making ability of a Jones, for example) and is also trying to shore up the New Zealand batting around six or seven.

This is often when, during an innings, the second new ball is taken, and having a batsman who can deal with a quick and moving ball is a sound theory - even if it has yet to be proven in Watling's case.

Let's not forget, too, that Wright is thinking "big picture". He has embraced the idea of four quicks and, frankly, thank God ... yet another series of our usual three medium-quicks, plus Daniel Vettori, and a side which seems hopefully (and myopically) set up to gain nothing more than an honourable draw would be about as much fun as plunging your butt into liquid nitrogen. There is little so frustrating as limited ambition.

Having Doug Bracewell matching up with Chris Martin, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, soon-to-be-newcomer Neil Wagner, the injured Hamish Bennett, plus Kyle Mills, along with the evergreen Vettori gives the New Zealand attack depth and competition - and, more to the point, gives the Black Caps the potential to bowl sides out, rather than just restrict them.

Having four quicks on hand allows bowlers to come back fresh and keeps the pressure on the opposing batsmen. This is the raison d'etre behind Watling - and Wright is to be congratulated for having the cojones to give it a crack.

The other side of the argument is that makeshift wicketkeepers do not always work. Consider Jock Edwards, the rollicking batsman who toured England in 1978 after being pressed into service behind the stumps and of whom one member of the BBC commentary team said that he was "the worst wicketkeeper I've ever seen ... he's made mistakes you'd have the 3rd XI 'keeper at school running round the pitch for".

New Zealand lost that series 3-0 in England (in spite of the presence of one RJ Hadlee) with Edwards and Bruce Edgar sharing stumper's duties, with one JG Wright one of the opening bats.

However, pressing a batsman into wicketkeeping has worked plenty of times. Examples: Alec Stewart (133 tests for England; 8400 test runs at an average just below 40, 15 test centuries); Wayne Phillips (replaced Rodney Marsh after retirement; 27 tests for a struggling Australia, just under 1500 runs at 32 average; two centuries); and there are others. Time to give it a go.

Back in 2005, I wrote a column decrying the appalling ICC decision to amend the bend in a bowler's arm to accommodate Muttiah Muralitharan's suspect action, particularly when bowling his doosra. It said changing the laws of cricket to avoid confronting a difficult issue was a crock and would lead to a whole new generation of chuckers.

Now Sajeed Ajmal's crooked-arm wicket-taking against England is causing thought in that country as to whether they should train their spinners to throw. Now that Murali is out of the game and potential embarrassment is out of the way, what price an ICC decision amending the bend allowed in a bowler's arm to more reasonable levels? Watch this space ...