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How much of a role do 'keepers play in winning matches? Waheed Khan - 5 July 2002
Whoever eventually replaces Rashid Latif is unlikely to match his unique career statistics. Wasim Bari did play a record 81 Tests for Pakistan but even he did not come close to Rashid's achievement in just 31 Tests over a 10 year span. Cricket, like all sports, thrives on its personalities and glamourised by the media. Ask any avid cricket lover or a man on the street to name a few players and quickly, names of Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram, Shahid Afridi will roll off his tongue.
England 'keeper James Foster has been in the limelight by being written up after he was preferred over the vastly experienced Alec Stewart until he injured himself. During India's recent West Indian tour, Deep Dasgupta and Ajay Ratra caught everyone's attention over the perennial argument of whether it is better to play a specialist wicket-keeper/batsman or a specialist batsman/wicket-keeper. Ratra, meanwhile, with his maiden Test hundred in Antigua has apparently made it obvious that in these days of non-stop international cricket, there is no such thing as a specialist wicket-keeper who is a rabbit with the bat.
Mark Boucher of South Africa is everyone's favourite with his "boy next door" looks and clean-cut image. Sri Lanka have Romesh Kaluwitharana and Kumar Sangakkara, both capable of playing on their own as batsmen, while Zimbabwe has been served brilliantly by Andy Flower or the schoolboy Tatenda Taibu. Even the Bangladesh team captain Khalid Mashud has become integral to the Test cricketing babes with his 'keeping and above average batting ability. But, perhaps, no wicket-keeper has enjoyed a success story as perfect as Pakistan's Rashid Latif. Last year, at the age of 32, he made a comeback to the Pakistan squad in England after three years in the wilderness and since then, has confounded everyone with his brilliance behind the stumps and his many valuable knocks at critical times. His is a story of determination; a narrative marked by incidents of controversy. A few years ago, Rashid hit the headlines for blowing the whistle on his teammates in South Africa and Zimbabwe when the match-fixing scandal first reared its ugly head. Today, however, he has a different tale to tell. A tale where the Pakistan team can't afford to do without him. A tale where he has matured as a person and realised that loyalty counts for a lot and that at times a person has to make compromises for his family and friends. When he came back to the team in England, his critics were sceptical of his performances and doubted he could fill Moin Khan's boots, given the latter's uncanny knack of bailing out Pakistan time and again when facing disaster. Rashid proved everyone wrong, for in his very second comeback Test at Manchester he scored a match winning 71 and accounted for seven dismissals in Pakistan's upset win. It was ironic that Rashid made such a decisive comeback in the same country and against the same opposition against whom he made his Test debut with a bang in 1992 but also lost favour of his teammates and selectors in 1996. Today, Rashid realises just how much of a difference it makes to be in the Pakistan team and out of it. "I have learnt my lessons. Today I have nothing on my mind except to continue playing as long as I can for Pakistan. Today I have learnt to play with niggling injuries and problems because I learnt the bitter way once you are out of the team; it is very hard to make a comeback. No one hands you a Pakistan place on a plate, you have to fight for it, and thus one must learn to appreciate the importance of wearing the Pakistan colours." He has no complaints about what has happened in the past. "All that is history. Today I realise I have competition with Moin Khan. If I don't perform he or the other youngsters are waiting to take my place." They say statistics never lie in cricket and in Rashid's case they say a lot about his contribution to the team and as a wicket-keeper/batsman of exceptional calibre. How many Pakistan players can claim to having been a member of a Pakistan team, which has a 75 per cent win record? Hard to believe but true in Rashid's case. Of the 31 Tests he has played, Pakistan has won 22, lost five and drawn four. More interestingly, in these 22 Tests, Rashid has been a member of the winning team and has contributed 916 runs with five 50s with one century at an average of 36.64. But the topping on the cake, besides his runs, are 84 dismissals as a wicket-keeper. Consider this: with his overall record of 1,162 runs in 31 Tests at an average of 29.05 with five fifties and one hundred and a total of 108 dismissals and it is obvious just how much of a key role Rashid has played in matches that Pakistan won. Compare this with Wasim Bari's record of having seen Pakistan win just 17 matches in 81 Tests in which his contribution was 202 runs at an average of 22 with one fifty and he effected a total of only 60 dismissals. Compare it with Moin Khan's record of 63 Test appearances in which Pakistan won 18 when he was keeping. A total of 636 runs at an average of 26.50 with six fifties and total of 46 dismissals in these victories. Or even with that of Saleem Yousuf who also enjoyed a remarkable run as wicket-keeper/batsman under Imran Khan's leadership. When Yousuf was wicket-keeper in 32 Tests, Pakistan won12 of them in which he scored 351 runs at an average of 25.07 with two half-centuries and executed an impressive 57 dismissals. So where does Rashid Latif stand in the hall of fame when it comes to Pakistani wicket-keepers? Not to forget that he completed 100 dismissals in Tests in the quickest time of 28 Tests, whereas Yousuf did so in 31 Tests, Bari in 36 Tests, Moin in 49 Tests and Imtiaz Ahmed managed 93 victims in 41 Tests which included three as a fielder. Rashid is also the only Pakistani 'keeper to have effected five dismissals in an innings five times in his short Test career; the second best are Bari and Yousuf with two such instances each. Another interesting piece of information as far as Pakistani wicket-keepers are concerned is that there were 40 innings in Bari's Test career when he didn't have a single dismissal, whereas Moin went through 35 such innings, Yousuf 10 innings, Imtiaz 22 innings and Rashid 13 innings without a dismissal. So what do all these stats prove or do they prove anything at all? Sure, there will be critics who will argue that in Bari's time Pakistan's bowling attack was not as effective as it is today. As such there were fewer opportunities for a 'keeper to take catches or perform stumpings. But if these statistics don't really give a clear answer to who is the best wicket-keeper/batsman to have represented Pakistan, they do make one thing very clear, the attitude of the Pakistan teams in the last five decades. Given the win ratio when either Rashid or Moin played in 94 Tests between them, Pakistan won a total of 40 tests, drew 28 and lost 26, which is not a bad record at all. The figures indicate that the Pakistan team during the period when these two played in the 1990s and in the last two years had more belief in itself and could win matches consistently. Now compare this with Wasim Bari's 81 Tests with 17 wins and 43 draws and it becomes obvious that in the period he played in the late 1960s, the '70s and early '80s, the Pakistan team was clearly more content to play safe. What is interesting is that Pakistan won six of these 17 matches during a golden period of 14 Tests, with Mushtaq Mohammad as captain between 1976 and 1979 when Pakistan beat New Zealand (twice), Australia at Sydney, the West Indies in Port-of-Spain and then India at home (twice). They drew five of the matches and lost the remaining three to Australia in Australia and the West Indies at Port-of-Spain and Kingston, Jamaica. Bari did not play in one of the drawn matches at Karachi against New Zealand and in his place Shahid Israr kept wicket for Pakistan. That was the only time that Bari missed a Test since making his debut in 1967 at the age of 19 years and 126 days. Then we come to the record of the Pakistan team when Imtiaz Ahmed was the 'keeper between 1952 and 1962, when the Pakistan team was at its weakest and lacked superstars apart from Fazal Mahmood, Hanif Mohammad or Imtiaz himself. Pakistan won eight Tests and drew 20 in this period, most of the wins being credited to that outstanding leader, Abdul Hafeez Kardar. Let us look at the stats in more detail:
© CricInfo Limited
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