Why Australia can win the Ashes 5-0 -- Part 9

From TS Trudgian, Canada

There is a gambling element to B.J. Haddin’s wicketkeeping. When Australia took on South Africa in Sydney 2009 he came up to the stumps while Andrew McDonald was bowling. McDonald is not an express bowler, but he is quick enough to make a wicketkeeper think twice. With the gloves Haddin is no Jack Blackham, nor is he Bertie Oldfield. The former stood up to even Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth, and took gave the quick man two stumpings; of the latter it is said that he exuded such grace and elegance that he would knock off just one bail when effecting stumpings off the quicks. But Haddin chose to approach the stumps and these were days before the Hannibal Lecter facemasks made popular by the World Twenty20 in 2009.

By standing up he kept the batsmen back in the crease, and since McDonald bowls such a straight line, the slightest seam movement could have him in with a stumping wrought from a lazy South African back foot. As it was, Boucher played a flamboyant cover drive, producing a thick outside edge which would have flown comfortably Haddin’s gloves ... if he had been standing back. Not the best advertisement for keeping up the stumps, sure, but at least Haddin was willing to put the burgeoning partnership under pressure, doing something. He almost affected a leg-side stumping several overs later — there is little better reward for a keeper.

Rod Marsh — who should know a thing or two about keeping — says that a keeper should be judged on the number of catches he holds, not of byes he concedes. What a relief: ‘Bad Hands’ had a torrid time keeping a clean sheet in the start of his career. (It would belie Anglo-Australian rivalry if I did not make mention that the record for the most byes conceded in a match is 52, held by Matt Prior.) Of course, Haddin is no Gilchrist, but we must move beyond that. His keeping has improved steadily since his permanency in the Australian side. Plenty of give off the inside hip, the patented Ian Healy flick of the heels in leaping for overhead balls, and the odd bit of inspired play make him the pick of the possible keepers during the Ashes.

He can bat too, although had he survived the second over at Lord’s back in 2009 — see Vol. II — then world-record run chases and my Dad’s pessimism could have been broken, and two-dozen schoolkids could have learned the lesson on which I was bred: Australia beat England at cricket — fact.