Former England wicketkeeper-batter Bob Taylor said Ben Stokes should be the glovesman for the side in their upcoming five-match Test series against India. England have picked Foakes and Jonny Bairstow as their wicketkeeper-batters for the Test tour of India starting on January 25 in Hyderabad.
Though Bairstow kept wickets for England in the Ashes, he did drop catches in the series after coming back from a freak leg injury. Foakes, on the other hand, was left out of the squad for the Ashes but has managed to earn a recall for the India tour, a place where he exhibited exceptional wicket-keeping skills in the 2021 trip.
“I was there watching at Galle when Ben Foakes scored a hundred on debut. I would have persevered with him but then the next thing you know, he’s been dropped. The one thing I did notice last summer was that Jonny Bairstow was not fit.
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“He had a bad injury and came back and had put a bit of weight on and that can affect your concentration. I would go with Ben in India where you keep all day in heat and humidity,” said Taylor to The Telegraph.
Taylor played 57 Tests for England from 1971 to 1984 and said he used to lose sleep over errors while wicketkeeping in matches. “It didn’t mean to say I wasn’t trying with my batting and I’m not making excuses but nobody, either at Derbyshire or England, encouraged me to try and improve my batting.
“I never lost sleep over my batting. But I did lose sleep if I missed stumpings or dropped catches because that was my job. It’d be a different story today I suppose but it still happens. Ben Foakes, James Foster, Chris Read and Jack Russell all got picked, dropped, picked and dropped. I think that’s wrong.”
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Taylor also emphasised concentration being a key element for a wicketkeeper. “When I coaching wicketkeeping to kids I’d say to the young boys, forget what you see on TV with keepers shouting and carrying on.
“You’ve got to concentrate. It is ok geeing up your lads but I said if you’re too busy chatting to the opposition, or all this business, you’re not concentrating and you will let your team down.”
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