Part-time wicket keepers in Tests

Here we take up the cases where someone was not the nominated keeper in a Test, took over when the nominated keeper was unfit or unavailable and took one or more catch or stumping while doing so.

Catches as keeper while not nominated keeper:

These are all the 38 players who took at least 1 catch in their careers.

The number of Tests here are those when they were not nominated keepers. Some, notably de Villiers and Bairstow in recent years, have been nominated keepers in some Tests. These are not included in the above table.

Stumpings while not nominated keeper:

Similarly, these are the 15 players who have taken at least 1 stumping in their career as a non-keeper.

These lists overlap. It is better to consolidate them into a single list.

Consolidated list of players who have taken at least one catch as keeper and/or one stumping in Tests where they were not nominated keepers:

Among these 43 players, AB de Villiers has the most catches and most dismissals (12 each) followed by KC Sangakarra and TWM Latham (7 each).

The most stumpings are 2 by Tillakaratne, M Wasim and Christiani.

This also lists the total number of dismissals (as a fielder) in these Tests. The highest is 133 by de Villiers followed by 96 by Collingwood with a few others in the 90s.

Although it is not mentioned here, de Villiers played another 24 Tests as nominated keeper and took a further 89 catches and 5 stumpings there. Similarly, Collingwood never played any Test as a nominated keeper, so his career total of catches is 96 as shown above. Sangakkara played a further 48 Tests as nominated keeper and took 124 catches and 20 stumpings, to give him a total of 202 dismissals.

From the first two tables above, we can see that the most dismissals in a match by these keepers is 5 by Imrul Kayes, followed by 4 for several others. The case of Majid Khan’s 4 catches is particularly interesting, and deserves a separate post.

But this is not the end of the story. There are also players who were not in the playing eleven and substituted for the wicketkeeper. Details of their performance are hard to find. However, stumpings by a substitute are rare and are covered here:

Stumped by a substitute-a rare occurrence.

Most sixes (but no fours) in an innings

While following WI batting against SL in a T20I on Mar 6, one wondered if Russell’s 6 sixes and no fours was a record. It isn’t, but we can see the records here:

The devaluation of T20I match records is well under way. However, among “serious” matches the record would be Morgan’s 7 against SA. The next among serious matches would be Russell’s 6.

Let us look at the corresponding records for ODIs:

Here the record is 6 (less than the T20I record!) by Collingwood and Neesham. Raina is one with 5 sixes. Another  was AD Mascarenhas, who scored 30 of his runs in 5 6s off an over from Yuvraj Singh.

And in Tests, the record is held by one of the rising tailend sloggers from India:

Umesh Yadav took over the record jointly held by Nixon Mclean, Flintoff and de Grandhomme. Further down, Keith Miller hit 3 sixes and no fours against India back in 1948. More recently, Southee and Bairstow also did this against India.

CA Walsh’s 18* included three 6s as the only scoring strokes in his 18-ball innings.

From India, others such as Kuruvilla, Shami and Sir Ravindra Jadeja have also tried their hand at this.

Footnote: NAM McLean was better known for his illustrious names (Nixon Alexei McNamara) than for his relatively modest performances.

India had a similar player named Napoleon Einstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Einstein