Foakes displays full artistic repertoire
Sharp stumpings on a track of such unpredictable bounce add to case for England always to pick their best wicketkeeper
More than any other role in cricket, watching a wicketkeeper can feel like an exercise in confirmation bias. With every catch that a player picked primarily for his batting spills, so the cry goes out: pick your best wicketkeeper. Every matchchanging innings by a keeper viewed as the strongest batting option brings the opposite refrain, acclaimed as proof the days of always picking the best keeper are anachronistic.
It is a debate simultaneously never-ending and wildly oscillating.
For five years, Ben Foakes has been hailed as England’s finest pure wicketkeeper, a title seldom disputed since his fantastic display with the gloves during his debut series in Sri Lanka in 2018.
Foakes was left out only two Tests later, despite a Test batting average of 41.5, as England preferred to hand the gloves first to Jonny Bairstow and then Jos Buttler: more destructive batsmen but less adept behind the sticks. Among certain sections of England fans, Foakes’s treatment has been a sore point since.
After two full years away from Test cricket, England’s rotation schedule finally afforded Foakes a sixth Test cap. On a track offering biting yet unpredictable turn and bounce, the third morning allowed Foakes to show the depth of his wicketkeeping gifts.
Adjusting to late turn and unpredictable bounce while trying to pick up the ball obscured by the batsman demands all of a wicketkeeper’s concentration and skill. Here, the stumping is a crowning glory. In the space of 27 balls of India’s second innings and on his 28th birthday, Foakes had two.
Left-armer Jack Leach was the bowler on both occasions, but there the similarities ended. For Foakes’s first stumping, Leach bowled over the wicket to right-hander Rohit Sharma. For his second, left-hander Rishabh Pant was on strike, with Leach bowling around the wicket. Where Rohit made a minuscule misjudgment – leaving the tip of his right leg on the popping crease rather than behind it while attempting a forward defensive – Pant charged down the wicket to attack a ball that landed in a puff of dust.
Both deliveries had the same ultimate result, with Foakes rewarded for the adaptability of his technique. While his gloves almost hugged off stump while Rohit was on strike, to Pant they were considerably wider, allowing him to react to a ball that spun the width of four stumps.
These two moments – with the run out of Cheteshwar Pujara after collecting Ollie Pope’s flick from short leg in front of the stumps not far behind – encapsulated why Kiran More, the former India keeper, described his performance as the best by a foreign keeper this century, evoking Bob Taylor’s displays. “He is watching the ball, not the batsman – a lot of keepers follow the batsman, that’s where they make mistakes,” More said.
Not even a keeper as outstanding as Foakes is inoculated against error though. The euphoria of the twin stumpings was somewhat tempered by a missed catch and stumping later in the day – both extraordinarily
difficult yet well within the scope of what we have been accustomed to seeing from him. Had it been Buttler, the mistakes would have fit more easily into a narrative – pick your best wicketkeeper.
Yet these hints of fallibility could still not obscure how Foakes routinely makes the magnificent look mundane, so efficient is his method. After his defiant first-innings 42 not out, Foakes has a Test average of 46.8 to boot. That this is only his sixth Test is supremely unfortunate, but that is not the same as saying the decision is wrong. In his past seven Tests, Jos Buttler has averaged 64.6 while taking 28 of the 32 catching chances offered.
Test cricket in Asia is also uniquely well suited to showing off Foakes’s strengths. As a batsman, he is a better player of spin: he averages 68 against spin in Tests but only 25 against pace, and 10 runs more against spin in first-class cricket, too. Behind the stumps, he is masterful keeping to both, but it is on turning wickets this prowess adds most value to a side: Foakes has now made five stumpings in Tests and missed two; Buttler has made one, earlier this year, and missed five.
If Foakes is not a perfect wicketkeeper, his standing among the very best in the world owes to much more than just confirmation bias. Perhaps, rather than resume the debate about how Foakes could be accommodated in England’s Test team as more than a stand-in – could Buttler play as a specialist batsman? – it would be wiser just to savour his artistry.