“When keepers start their career, whatever level they next go to, usually they’re gonna improve along with them getting exposed to that level. I certainly was a much better keeper by the end of my Test career than when I started. So, that’s the question.. there might be another better keeper out there, but if there’s someone appropriate to that level and has the skillset to firstly be there and improve, if they’ve got the batting as well, that’s probably the more attractive proposition,” Adam Gilchrist stood very clear with his stance on what has become a contentious topic while speaking in a mid-Test show for Fox Sports.
The great flag-bearer of batting keepers, the legend who turned the gloveman effectively into an all-rounder, was obviously disappointed with India leaving out a talent as young and promising as Rishabh Pant for the first Test in Adelaide. The issue, in a way, would be closer to Gilly, who himself once replaced Ian Healy and brought a paradigm shift in the Test match game.
Make no mistake, the debate around Pant and Saha is certainly serious and has quite a deeper context to it. Gilly maybe not, but a larger section of prominent voices within the cricket fraternity stand divided on it. While many feel the team management is absolutely right in prioritising the quality of glovework in the Test match game when they opt for someone as good as Saha, others believe that’s too much of a compromise on batting ability at a time when run-making is a strenuous task and Pant should definitely be getting the nod.
Either group believe one option is shorter in one skill required for the dual role than his direct competitor and feel vindicated when their preferred name gets picked.
Perhaps the most balanced view amid all this came from Aakash Chopra, the former India Test opener and renowned commentator, analyst, who feels a wrong impression has been created that Saha can’t bat and Pant can’t keep to acceptable level.
Focusing on selection for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne in a video posted over his Facebook page, Chopra said, “… you can go towards Pant. But even if you play Saha, I am not going to criticise you even once.”
“If you want to play a better keeper at №7, that is Saha. It is not the case that Saha cannot bat, and it is not that Pant can’t keep wickets.”
He added, “till now, the atmosphere has been created that Pant is a bad keeper. How is that the case, as he takes very good catches, and last time on the Australian tour, he had taken the maximum catches; and Saha cannot bat; how can he not as he has a Test century.”
“If you have in mind that you should play a left-hander, there is no other left-hander in the lineup, and there is no game-changer. I am okay with it, but I am not going to criticise if you play Saha.”
While I personally subscribe to the theory that gives additional weightage to batting ability and like many, want Pant to play too, there are two things I absolutely agree with Chopra on: Saha is the “better keeper” and it’s definitely not the case that he “cannot bat”.
Throughout his career, Saha has shown remarkable ball sense and strength to his basics while keeping to both pace and spin. Technically, he is, despite the gap in experience, at a level Pant may never reach with his glovework, especially as more and more limited-overs cricket crowds the calendar and pureness of the first-class skills is compromised.
And, while a very respectable batting average of 42.14 across 120 first-class games has only translated into a meagre 29.09 after 38 matches at the Test level, before his shoulder injury, Saha time and time again contributed crucial runs with the bat. His hundreds in St Lucia and Ranchi are right up there among the finest knocks played by a wicketkeeper in modern-day Test cricket. On both occasions, tons at the other end sort of overshadowed the work done by the resilient batsman, but he was an equal contributor in helping India overcome the trouble waters. In one, Saha enabled India’s recovery from a precarious 126/5 to post a winning score of 353 on pitch with a good covering of grass on it, while in the other, he kept the firing Australians at bay when they threatened to take a huge first-innings lead and with that, probably the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as well. Only someone with decent amount of batting class and enhanced pressing-handling ability can play such knocks.
In my eyes, those two innings count for higher than even Pant’s tons at The Oval and the SCG in terms of sheer quality, as celebratory as they are for being the first instances of an Indian wicketkeeper scoring a hundred each in England and Australia, a larger portion of the one came when the surface had dried out significantly and with the opposition bowling its spinners while awaiting the new-ball, the other when the attack had already been drowned by Pujara and was feeling dispirited near the end of a long Test series on another lifeless track. Of course, no one can fault Pant for that. But MS Dhoni, for instance, whose record gets questioned for not making an overseas ton in a 90-Test career, scored much tougher runs in England, South Africa and New Zealand. His last Test knock was a match-saving one in Australia.
Pant has faced failures in 18 of his 22 Test innings so far and seems to be someone who needs a good platform laid for him to be able to get going, which is still fine for a youngster who is taking his first steps at the international level. In Saha’s case, his front-foot press makes him vulnerable to the short-pitch bowling upon his arrival to the crease. Once set, though, he gets into his rhythm nicely and goes about building the innings quite sedately. But we now know, how much perceptions influence our judgement. I still think Pant is the better batsman, with a greater range, but it’s also important for us to realise, Saha is no mug with the bat either.
With that established, I feel there should be greater scrutiny over the team management regarding their handling of the two earnest Test cricketers. When Pant grabbed his opportunities with both hands in England and Australia, the youngster would obviously have expected a long run in the side. Two Tests in the West Indies later, he was dropped, with Saha brought back for the home games against South Africa and Bangladesh. Then, when Saha would’ve felt the captain and the coach will show some trust on his batting, they dropped him too in New Zealand, with Pant brought back. Nine months later, Pant is dispensable to India’s cause, with Saha brought back for the D/N Test. Now again, there are murmurs, they’ll go back to Pant in Melbourne. That shows the lack of clarity which the captain and coach have operated with.
When Kohli and Shastri drop Pant on home tracks, they not only rob him off an opportunity to further develop his keeping, but also indirectly convey the level of trust they have on him at this stage of his glovework development. Just as same, when Saha is overlooked for New Zealand, you’re not only taking away a chance for him to prove his mettle with the bat to you in tough conditions, but also sending a wrong signal with regards to your belief on his overall batting ability.
Pant is 23, while Saha aged 36. Both are at a very critical stage of their respective careers. Pant is hoping for chances to strengthen his claim as the first-choice keeper, while Saha needs time in the middle after a serious injury break. This gross mismanagement is quite disrespectful of both of them. If the think-tank feel Pant is the future, they should make it absolutely clear by playing him every Test, irrespective of the conditions, which is how you find your Dhonis. If they think Saha deserves to play, having gone out of the scene only because of injuries and not performance, that should reflect in the selections. Currently, however, there seems to be a scrambled brain in play, which isn’t helping Saha, Pant or India.
