The veteran Leicestershire and former England stumper offers some pearls of wisdom designed to turn you into a nick-claiming machine.
PREPARATION STARTS THE NIGHT BEFORE
“I’m the sort of bloke that is easily distracted and being a county captain only adds to that. Time-management is the hardest part for me – giving myself enough time to sort out my own preparation.
“The first part of ensuring that I do that is making sure that I write everything down the night before, which mentally makes me commit to doing it on match days. I’ll list all of the things I feel I need to do and then systematically go through them.”
IN THE MORNING
“When I get to the ground I’ll make sure that I get out in the middle and familiarise myself with the background out of which the ball will be coming at both ends. I’ll make sure I take balls from all of the bowlers, so as to familiarise myself with their actions. I’ll also speak with them about any particular plans they might have with regards their bowling – whether, as spinners, they’ll look to bowl arm-balls at new batsmen or if they’re seam bowlers or swing bowlers, whether they’ll do anything different at any stage. It all helps to prepare me for what might be sent down.”
KEEP YOUR DISTANCE
“As well as taking in the look of the background at either end, I’ll also look at used pitches on the ground in order to give me an idea of the distances that the wicketkeeper has been standing back. It will give me a likely starting point, in terms of where to pick up my position, for when I go out and field.”
DRILL TO THRILL
“I make sure that I do my drills. I’ll catch the ball in one hand on both sides, two hands both sides and also work on diving one-handed to either side and catching at full stretch in both hands. When the ball is going in nicely, I’ll stop. It could be after six balls on each skill, it could be after 20 balls.”
WORKING UNDER PRESSURE
“I’ll also catch the ball at a shorter distance from the ball feeder in order to sharpen up my reflexes. By shortening the distance it puts me under more pressure, time-wise, to catch the ball. And because of this I can’t expect myself to catch every ball.
“But it does get you going in the morning and it does make things feel more straightforward when you go back to standing the appropriate distance away.”
THIGH HIGH
“I want to take the ball between knee and waist high, ideally somewhere around mid-thigh. If the ball is getting through to me higher or lower than that it causes knock-on problems for the slip fielders.”
WANT THE CATCH
“To do well you have to want the batsman to nick the ball to you – you can’t be scared to make a mistake. You have to want the batsman to edge the ball low to your right or left so that you can dive and take it.”
OWN IT
“Every ball I say to myself, ‘my nick’. It is the mental trigger that lets me know that I’m switched on and ready to take that catch, when it comes.”
FOOTWORK
“Stood back from the stumps, as I ready myself to take the ball, I make sure that my weight shifts quickly from left to right foot so that I am in the correct balanced position to go quickly to my right for the ball, if it’s a right-hander on strike, or the opposite direction for left-handers.
“If my weight isn’t right it is impossible to power across quickly enough off my right leg to catch the ball. This is something that I have worked incredibly hard on over my career. And something that is key to covering ground well.”
DIVING
“I used to dive for the ball on my side, but since playing with England I’ve changed to diving flat on my front. Diving on my front for balls has the advantage of allowing me to keep my eyes level as I go for the ball, and it also helps me to keep the outstretched glove presented flat to the ball and not thrown back, as it did when I dived on my side. This has been an important technical advance with regards my keeping.”
YOU CAN CROUCH TOO LOW
“Take the pitch and the bowlers into consideration when you are setting up to take the ball. If you have tall bowlers on bouncy pitches there is no need for your hands to be on the ground as the ball bounces. If your hands are steady, eight inches from the ground, it will give you more time and less distance to rise with the ball should it bounce higher than expected.”
WHEN THE BALL TURNS
“If the ball is turning you have to try to make room for yourself to catch the ball. If your body is in the way and the ball turns and bounces, you have nowhere to go.
“I do this by sliding my inside or outside foot back, depending which way the ball is spinning. This helps me turn my body to the side and accommodate the ball if it ‘rags square’, all the time leaving my weight on the now front foot.”
STAY CLOSE TO THE NICK
“I scratch a line about four inches back, running parallel with the stumps, and try to make sure that my gloves work along the line as much as possible. This ensures that my hands are as close as possible to a nick as they can be, giving it less chance to fly wide of my catching area.”
KEEPING FOR ENGLAND
“On debut for England at the MCG in front of 80,000 people I let through four byes in the first over. It was off Fred [Andrew Flintoff], bowling around the wicket to the left-hander and it sailed off for four. I dusted myself down, rationalised my chances of taking the ball and then parked it.
“In the next over I was keeping to Jon Lewis, a bowler who is great to keep to: he kisses the pitch and swings it away from the right-hander. Lewie is a bowler that is so accurate that I would very often stand up to him. Anyway, I’m stood back and he bowls his first ball in the next over and it swings and dips after pitching and smacks me on the knee before bouncing away for another bye! As a young player I would have crumbled. My head would have dropped and I would have been scared of the ball coming to me after that. But, with the benefit of experience I was able to get my head down and get on with the job. As a kid it would have destroyed me.”
THE BEST CATCH I EVER TOOK
“Was off an inside edge from Robin Smith off the bowling of Alan Mullally. He went for a big square cut and nicked it low to my left and I dived back and caught it in one hand. The reality was that I’d got my footwork all wrong and had my weight on my left foot which allowed me to get back to the catch. Without cocking it up in the first place I wouldn’t have smelled it!”
