Matt Prior: Trapeze artist or wicketkeeper?
Simon Briggs writing in The Daily Telegraph on how the wicketkeeper with particular reference to Matt Prior, is the player most likely to be exposed by the shortcomings of others.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
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Simon Briggs writing in The Daily Telegraph on how the wicketkeeper with particular reference to Matt Prior, is the player most likely to be exposed by the shortcomings of others.
Any sportsman is reliant on his colleagues: that is the whole point of team games. But the wicketkeeper, more than any other player, can be painfully exposed by the shortcomings of others. If the back four part like the Red Sea, allowing the striker a free run on goal, even the best stopper sometimes finds himself praying for the earth to swallow him up.
Likewise, if the seamers insist on switching off their satellite navigation systems, the man behind the stumps is often tempted to whip off his pads and volunteer his own dobbers or off-spinners as an emergency substitute.
Whatever skills Prior may possess as a bowler, yesterday's play suggested that he would have made a fine trapeze artist. At times he was diving left and right so regularly that he could have been practising for the big top, though without the luxury of a crash mat. By the end, his ribs must have felt as though he had gone 12 rounds with Joe Calzaghe.
Ashok Ganguly is an editorial assistant at Cricinfo