Melbourne [Australia]: Whenever a team from outside the subcontinent travels to India, much is talked about the batsmen and their struggle against spin on the 22 yards. But the difficulty faced by the touring wicketkeepers goes often unnoticed.
Same is the case this time around when Australia travel to India for a four-match Test series. All the talks have been going about how the Australian batters would battle it out against the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja; how their bowlers would take those 20 wickets, which includes the likes of batting run-machine Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane to win a Test match.
However, on those spin-friendly wickets, one dropped catch or missed stumping can always change the course of a Test or even a series.
Keeping all this in mind, former wicketkeeper-batsman Brad Haddin has advised Matthew Wade, the 28-year-old who will behind the wicket, keeping the gloves in what could be Australia’s toughest tours in the recent times.
“You just have to find a way to catch them … sometimes you’ve got to catch them ugly,” news.com.au quoted Haddin as saying when asked what advice he passed on to Wade last week.
“You’ve just got to get something behind the ball if they’re bouncing short, not carrying.”
“It’s an unforgiving place but this team, since the Hobart Test match, is really starting to move forward and this will be a great opportunity to see how far we’ve come,” he added.
Haddin and Wade were both in New Zealand for the recent ODI series, the former as an assistant coach and the latter as stand-in skipper. However, Wade could not play any match because of a back injury and had to return home, but not before having some valuable tips about wicket-keeping during the Test series in India which begins February 23 in Pune.
“You’ve got to trust your technique … when you’re put under pressure,” the 39-year-old said. “And India can do that to a keeper.”
“It can ask a lot of questions of your technique,” he added.
The first Test in Pune would be followed by games at Bengaluru (March 4-8), Ranchi (March 16-20) and Dharamsala (March 25-29). (ANI)