This article appears in the April edition of The Cricketer. Subscribe to The Cricketer and get Playfair 2002 free!

Jack Russell, the former Test wicket-keeper, believes England are failing to nurture the country's wicket-keeping talents

Few England wicket-keepers down the years have come under more searching scrutiny at the beginning of their international careers than James Foster. Every aspect of the young Essex keeper's technique has been analysed by television pundits and a press corps yet to be convinced that Foster, 22 this month, is the long-term successor to Alec Stewart.

But despite the almost intrusive analysis of Foster's style, athletic movement and handling skills on the parched pitches of the subcontinent, former Test wicket-keeper Jack Russell is convinced the England management are missing a trick in helping him to develop his game. The veteran Gloucestershire keeper, who himself had to survive sceptical examination from some poisonous journalistic pens at the start of his 54-Test career, believes Foster deserves the same level of specialist back-up that the England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson has demanded for his World Cup goalkeepers.

Russell, who played his last Test against West Indies in Antigua in 1997/98, but is playing for Gloucestershire with the same passion as at the height of his career, claims the ECB have made no provision on their payroll for a wicket-keeping coach since Alan Knott was unceremoniously released as guru to the England keepers in 1999.

"When you see what the former England and Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence is doing for the England goalkeepers, you wonder why a multi-million pound English cricket industry cannot afford to employ a specialist wicket-keeping coach," says Russell. "I simply can't understand why we are neglecting our keepers when millions are being spent on a National Academy and other centres of excellence up and down the country. If they can afford to employ physiologists – and I have nothing against them – and other vital back-up as part of the modern game, surely they can look after the keepers. Or have they become the poor relations of the English game?

"The whole wicket-keeping industry in England is being neglected from top to bottom. County keepers up and down the country need more specialist help than they are receiving if we are to maintain the standards of excellence that have been established in this country since before the Second World War."

Jack Russell © Cricketer

Russell believes that more sustained specialist guidance should be made available beyond that which full-time ECB coach and former Middlesex keeper Paul Farbrace can offer alongside his other commitments. Bob Taylor's employment in an occasional advisory capacity is commendable, but as much as guidance from the ex-England and Derbyshire gloveman is welcomed, it cannot match the level of commitment given by Ian Healy as a specialist coach to young Australian keepers.

Any thoughts of retirement have been abandoned by Russell as his enthusiasm for life on the county circuit has been renewed. In fact, he believes his argument for the appointment of a wicket-keeping coach is so compelling that he is prepared to rearrange his frantically busy schedule, which incorporates his parallel career as an artist, to lend Lord's the benefit of his vast experience if required.

A student of the wicket-keeping art to the point of being labelled as an obsessive, even at this late stage of his career, he warns: "If we don't get help to the keepers now, we will be paying for our sins 10 years down the line. When I was an England regular, I cannot tell you how much Alec Stewart and I valued our discussions with Alan Knott. He didn't travel with the England team but it got to the stage where Knotty would ring us on tour with helpful advice after watching our performances on television at home.

"Unfortunately, the ECB put a stop to it. He wasn't allowed to travel with us and, in the end, wasn't even allowed to phone us, leaving Alec and me to our own devices. I don't care how good you are, any sportsman or woman needs that expert eye to spot flaws in technique, even someone as good as Tiger Woods.

"I am delighted with the progress Foster appears to be making and I'm pleased that the selectors have maintained their support. But he needs guidance from someone who knows the trade inside out. He is not the finished product. He is as raw as you can be, though the winter tour experience has been a marvellous encouragement to him.

"Given the opportunity, I would happily rearrange my schedule to work with him because I feel so passionately about our keepers being left out in the cold. Wicket-keepers enjoy talking to other keepers. England should be thankful that it has produced some of the best keepers in the world. But without some expert guidance for the current crop, I fear we could lose ground in a specialist position that has become so vital to all decent England teams back over the years.

"Getting rid of Knotty was one of the biggest cricketing crimes of the century. I am sure he is enjoying himself in Cyprus, where he now resides, but we can ill afford to lose such expert talent when there is so much emphasis these days on coaching."

© The Cricketer