God help me - the Test Cricket thread

[LP]

He needs to tidy up his keeping and sure up his batting a bit IMO.  He's done OK but after the first mix up with first slip the tolerance slips.

Yes, it is understandable.

Those slips mix ups are common when teams get the spacing wrong. I listened to Punter about this and my own cricket experience tells me they have it exactly the wrong. I rarely disagree with Punter but I will on this one, by spacing players further apart things will get worse when they are "forced to go for everything". The problem isn't the areas within reach, it's the area of doubt that becomes wider when you stand further apart, that causes a hesitation when players aren't confident and then it's too late to correct the reaction.

When I was captaining until I had confidence in the group behind the wicket I found keeping them closer together than normal was the best solution, very few if any chances went down and their confidence went through the roof, then they would naturally start standing a bit further apart. It can be especially important on pitches that are a bit variable, as you have to stand up closer to the stumps, you have got less time as you get closer to the wicket, so you need a narrower area to cover.

Rather than making them wider apart I found a bigger stagger to be more useful, have the keeper aligned with or even a step in front of 2nd slip and 1st slip well behind the keeper. This gives the slips freedom to dive about, even dive forward, without getting in each others way.

Years ago there were some stats I read once, circulating in cricket circles about where chances go statistically. It's some crazy percentage of catches go to the keeper or within the area of 1-1/2 keepers. Having the 1st slip and keeper closer together you still cover something like 80% of chances behind the wicket or across the whole field. I was quite surprised at those stats when I first read them, but if you think for a while it makes sense based on how many catches keepers get relative to the rest of the field! If 4:1 to either the keeper or 1st slip makes sense, than that's 80% of catches.