In Downton's time, England bowlers were so bad that the ball rarely passed the bat and usually went to the boundary. The wicket keeper was practically redundant. That is why his stats give the illusion that he was a good keeper.

Djoker, I once looked at keepers who had had long county careers. I ordered their innings kept by the run rate, expecting that when the run rate was higher, the bye rates would be lower (because less balls would be getting to the keeper). I found no trend at all.

The null result surprised me, and I don't really know how to explain it. My best guess is that any decrease in byes because the bad bowlers get hit more often is offset by those bowlers spraying the ball wildly down leg side more often.

I was surprised not to see Ian Smith on the earlier list as at the top of his game he could probably have claimed to be the world's best keeper (not keeper-batsman, but keeper), so it's good to see him on this one.

Hi David,

Interesting stuff.

I hadn't thought about it much before, but your list has made me realise how many more byes there were in days gone by.

I realise that uncovered pitches would have made things more difficult and also the greater proportion of spin bowling would have affected things too.

But given that EVRYONE agrees that fielding standards have improved since the 1960s (mainly the impact of limited overs cricket I guess), why wouldn't we believe the same about wicketkeeping too?

Makes you wonder how someone like Geraint Jones(widely critized for his poor keeping) actually compares with with someone like Don Tallon (I think Bradman picked him in his all-time XI)

Well according to your list, Jones is a better keeper than Tallon.

I'm not sure byes give the full picture, but it certainly has opened my eyes as to how much wicket keeping standards have probably improved over the years.

Thanks.

Very interesting and I like the idea of adjusting for country kept in, though if you adjust based on pre WWII figures and then I think it's a little unfair to include names such as Ames, Duckworth, Strudwick, Blackham, Ward in the full list.

And Godfrey Evans was certainly standing up to Alec Bedser on a semi-frequent basis after the war (perhaps most spectacularly catching Neil Harvey at Melbourne in '50/51) and I have a feeling that Gil Langley and Don Tallon might have done more than a little keeping up to quicker-than-medium bowlers too. These gents and others of their ilk were certainly very different cricketers to the batsmen-who-can-keep we so often see now.

is there enough information out there to do this analysis in terms of byes per n dot balls? This would correct for any erroneous high scores due to the ball not getting pat the bat.
On the non-correlation between bye rate and run rate, you would expect poorer bowlers to be in poorer sides which would have poorer keepers. Maybe they're getting fewer balls but missing more of them because they're not as good. Alternatively, they may not be expecting them.

this certainly proves why Kirmani should be rated highly, after playing most number of matches in this list ( 88 ) against those ultimate spinners ( Chandra, Bedi, Prasanna, Venkat, etc. ) on turning tracks in India and conceding less number of byes is an amazing feat. He is surely a very underrated keeper.

I'm a huge Mark Boucher fan and feel he's constantly short changed. In 20/Twenty, ODI's and Tests (3 formats of cricket) Boucher is the greatest keeper and I'm sure he'll be the ONLY Test keeper to go over 700 wickets when he reaches Adam Gilchrist age in 4 years/4 season from now.

I have always wondered why wicket keepers are not rated by the ratio of catches taken vs. catches dropped. Or dimissals completed (if you want to include stumpings) vs. dismissals attempted. Then you would be testing the keepers ability without having to adjust for the quality of his bowlers, nor to some lesser extent the quality of the pitches. I suppose one difficulty with this method may be the unavailability of statistics on dropped catches. But I think even for fielders, if we are going to keep track of ctahces taken and celebrate milestones, it is high time that official stats on dropped catches be kept to put a player's catching ability in proper perspective.

David though your analysis is way better than Ananth's (don't know what he was thinking), I don't think you can analyse keepers so easily. We all know how good Knott, two Ians (Healy and Smith) or Rashi Latif were as keepers but there's no concrete way to determine thier quality.
As you, yourself admitted the difference in bowling quality, style (Waqar vs Mcgrath), pitches etc makes it very difficult to determine a keeper's quality. Your point about using Byes as an indicator also has some flaws:

1. Till sometime back extra runs scored on a wide were considered byes.
2. Keeping to a bowler who bowls very straight is different from bowling to someone who sprays it all over the place.
3. A keeper is more likely to concede byes against spinners compared to fast bowlers, so the ratio of overs bowled by spinners is important.

SO try to invent something else to rate the keepers or leave it as a subjective topic.

Cheers!
NYD!!

Nice little stats. It does reveal some hiiden things. Barring West Indies, all the other other top 3 countries are from subcontinent where because of spinining tracks and low bounce keepers ae closer to stumps and more byes are leaked. A deeper analysis would have revealed a lot if it was on country basis too. I am pretty sure India, Pakistan and SriLanka would be among the top 3 countries where most bye were conceded both by home and away teams.

You have used mere assumptions. Not good not good!

As surprising as Khaled Mashud's inclusion may be on this list, it should be noted that he was regarded as the best wicket-keeper for over a decade in Bangladesh. The nimbleness on his feet, the swift glovework made him a delight for the spinners. I've seen many stunning catches and stumpings from this man over the last 12-15 years.

Jeff, I touched on it in the post (and Dave elaborated a bit in his comment), but keepers such as Tallon kept up to the stumps to fast bowling a lot more than keepers do today. So it's not really fair to compare them to modern keepers.

Ideally I'd have a variable controlling "kept up to stumps to quick bowling", but unfortunately that data's not recorded....

I have a partial solution to take into account of how often a keeper kept up to the stumps. Instead of using just byes per 600 deliveries, use byes per stumping per 600 deliveries. You can't get a stumping if you are standing back. Stumpings are rare - the best Test stumping keeper in history has less than 1 stumping per match so this shouldn't blow the analysis. This also helps take into account that it is more difficult to keep to a spinner than a fast bowler.

I have a request to ask. Anath and I disagree over whether a keeper can reduce the number of leg byes (I think they can). Could you please do an identical analysis to this with leg byes instead of byes? If the keepers come out in approximately the same order then we can conclude that a good keeper can reduce the number of leg byes. What's more we might even be able to figure out approximately by how much!

DVC, I will look into using stumpings as a proxy for standing up to the stumps. I'm not sure how often the quicks got stumpings though. Bedser had three.

I will also look into leg byes. I'll be back with the results in a couple of days.

Why is Khaled Mashud's appearance near the top of the list an anomaly. He was his country's no. 1 for a good few years and very possibly a quality wicket keeper.

Kimemia, fair enough, Khaled Mashud may well be a really good keeper. I don't see Bangladesh play very often, and I haven't noticed him myself. But it is still surprising to me - you wouldn't find any Bangladeshis anywhere near the top of a list of best batsmen or bowlers. But that country's still produced a top-notch keeper.

I think the analysis is based on a fallacy that the quality of a 'keeper is based on the number of byes conceded. It is akin to determining the best batsman on the basis of total number of balls faced per innings. A keeper's primary job is to take the opportunities for dismissal presented to him - generally a far more difficult task then merely catching a ball that has not touched anything (spinning / deteriorating tracks excepted). Having said that, I doubt whether stats exist regarding missed opportunities, so it would not be possible to use this measure. I think that when analysing the results of an exercise such as this, one needs to evaluate the results to determine whether the analysis is valid or not. There are too many great keepers down the list to convince me that this is a valid basis for evaluation

Johnmac, I think it is reasonable to believe that a keeper who is good and stopping balls is probably also good at catching them. The great keepers well down the list tend to come from the era of keeping up to the stumps a lot.

Just reposting a comment I made on your other blog, David:

I'm glad Syed Mustafa Hussain "Kiri" Kirmani is getting his due. Kirmani was absolutely wonderful keeping to the spinners. He also formed a pretty deadly duo with Kapil Dev. The best legside stumping I've seen in my life was, either Doug Walters off Doshi at the MCG or Chappell off Doshi at Adelaide during the 80-81 series (I'm not sure which of the two it was!). The best leg-side catch I've seen is that of Mudassar off Kapil Dev (on the first day) at Chennai in the 1979-80 series. Great gloves.

Moin Khan & Kamran Akmal above the great Rashid Latif----Certainly a 'Wicket keeping joke' of the cricketing history.

@Samir Chopra

The Kirmani stumping was Graeme Wood at MCG.

Agree with D.V.C that even a naive inclusion of stumping rates would improve the rankings.

If you think adjusting for individual stumping rates goes too far, how about adjusting for stumping rates by era?

This is a good post. It doesn't consider some parameters because of no data being available but it doesn't consider the parameters which don't speak anything about keeper's ability either. I am not sure but I think earlier the byes conceded on wides were considered as byes and not wides. Someone who has been around longer than me can confirm. If it is the case, it will hurt old wicketkeepers considerably. Also I read an article by Lawrence Booth on cricinfo where he has compared all Englist keepers in past 15 years by considering their dropped catches
(http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/362436.html). I am sure it can't be done for keepers in older times but might be done for more recent matches.

Regards,
Abhijeet

@ Samir Chopra

Best ever Leg-side stumping:

Ian Healy keeping to Micheal Bevan (yes Bevan) took the ball on half-volley and actually effected a stumping,; absolutely amazing. Don't remember the batsman, but it was in Australia (against West Indies I guess).

Cheers!!

NYD

David,

Regarding keepers standing up to quicker bowlers - maybe this is another area where "standards" have improved - not in physical ability but in tactical astuteness?

Why did they stand up to the medium pacers? Clearly it resulted in them conceding more byes, and i'm pretty sure it would also have resulted in more dropped/missed catches?

Did this make up for the fact that they maybe got a few stumpings and possibly saved some runs by keeping the batsmen in the crease?

Not sure. Maybe they would have been better off standing back as modern keepers would normally do?

Or maybe i'm wrong and it was a great tactic and it produced a net saving of runs and modern coaches should think about employing it.

I guess there's no way of definitively proving this, however given the much greater level of analysis used by coaches now, compared to that done by teams in byegone eras, surely someone has looked at this and decided that keepers are better off standing back?

Jeff, I am almost certain that keepers are better off standing back most of the time, because of the extra missed chances. I can't think of a situation where it would be clearly beneficial to stand up to the stumps - if the batsman is batting out of his crease, presumably it's to reduce the amount of swing. But if you keep up to the stumps, then it's hard to catch it off the edge.

I don't really know the history of why keepers used to stand up to the stumps more often - they didn't do it all the time (eg, in the Bodyline field photos, the keeper is standing back).

Sorry, the best ever legside stumping has to be by Romesh Kaluwitarana in 1996 at Eden Gardens,Calcutta during the dramatic or tragic (whichever way one can look at it)World Cup semi-final. Sachin Tendulkar playing a wonderful lone hand gets beaten by a very wide leg side delivery off Jayasuriya and Kaluwitarana takes the the ball at least a yard and a half away and in a flash gets Sachin and its all over for India. But of course no way will Kalu feature in a discussion of great keepers. But that stumping was the best for the sheer effect ie. getting the world's best batsman and the fact that it was a huge occasion.

Even this method may not be that good as pitches in India & Srilanka tend to be spinner friendly and has lot of uneven bounce which makes the wicket keeping that more difficult and byes are bound to be conceeded.

@Vidhya: Thanks. You know, I thought it was Wood as well. How could I forget?

Interesting stuff. Unfortunately the only true analysis of the quality of a keeper is the one where no stats are available. Percentage of dismissals made over the total attemped. All other available stats such as total dismissals, and even byes conceded depend far too heavily on the quality of the bowlers.

I liked Anaths article because it showed the keepers value to their team (not just their keeping skill), and I like this one because it adjusts fairly for playing in different conditions. Neither article accounts for the type or quality of the bowling, on which all keppers are codependant for success.

sdjones (and others), number of dismissals made over number attempted isn't the ideal thing to measure. A better stat is number of dismissals made over number of dismissals possible, which is a different thing (a better keeper will get a glove to more balls). Going further, you'd model how hard a catch/stumping is based on how far sideways and high/low the keeper had to go, and compare his actual tally of dismissals to the expectation based on where the ball was in each of his chances. They actually do something like this for fielders in Major League Baseball.

I think that counting missed chances is still a useful thing to do - a keeper who drops a lot is probably not very good - but it's not the ideal stat.

David
Your analysis of the Byes in terms of "Byes per x balls", with an adjustment factor is certainly far more accurate than the "Byes per match" I had used. If and when I do the follow-up post, I will approach you for permission to incorporate your algorithm.
Any particular reason you have used the Away keeper rate than the overall country rate.
But let us not forget that this is ONLY ONE one of the keeping measures.
Maybe Downton is the best in terms of Byes, Oldfield the best as far as Stumpings are concerned, possibly Knott the best in gathering, maybe Taylor the best in standing up to the pace bowlers, Kirmani the best in snaffling catches off spinners et al.
But what about overall value to the team.
More in my next comment.

In continuation.
Let us look at the difference in Byes/600 balls between Knott & Gilchrist, two of the greatest keepers.
After adjustment, Knott is ahead by 1.41 runs/100 overs, a full innings. Let me generously double this to get 2.82 Byes/match. The pure keeping qualities of Knott come through very well.
Now check the difference in dismissals/match, one of my parameters, between Knott & Gilchrist. It works out to 1.5 dismissals/match.
These are similar, but not comparable, numbers. However can any one deny the importance of 1.5 dismissals/match. What is the real value of this.
Granted, the bowler might be responsible for a number of these. However by participating in 1.5 more cst/match as against conceding 2.82 more byes/inns, has not Gilchrist contributed that MUCH MORE to the team cause.
My article emphasized the value to the team. On that factor I don't think there can be any contender to the top spot other than Gilchrist.

Ananth, I really don't see where you're coming from. You agree, I think, that Knott is a better pure keeper than Gilchrist. You would surely agree that if Knott had been able to keep to McGrath, Gillespie and co that he would have had a similar number of dismissals/match than Gilchrist (and probably more than Gilchrist, because Knott was a better keeper).

What you consider "contribution to the team" is really a measure of being present when excellent bowlers aiming for the edge of the bat.

The difference of 1.5 dismissals/match tells us next to nothing about the quality of the wicket-keepers, nor about their value to the team. It is a near-meaningless statistic. You may as well count wickets while player x was at mid off.

I used away keepers only because the keepers from a particular country might be unusually good or bad, and that would skew the average bye rates. Taking the average over the rest of the world's keepers seems fairer.

And feel free to use adjusted byes per x balls. It's just a stat, anyone can use it.

Knott played alongside Willis and Snow, who were certainly lesser bowlers than McGrath but certainly equal to or better than Gillespie/Kasprowicz/Lee.
To suggest that the wicket-keeper's role in a dismissal is virtually nothing as implied by your statements "You may as well count wickets while player x was at mid off" and "What you consider "contribution to the team" is really a measure of being present when excellent bowlers aiming for the edge of the bat" is a complete non-recognition of a key player's role.
To conclude that all "caught-behind"s are instances of great bowlers finding edges and any tom-dick-harry standing behind, catching the same is an extreme conclusion and certainly not the reality.
In 2001-02, I did an analysis of the ball-by-ball data of a few Test matches ball-by-ball data and around one in three wicket-keeper dismissals were difficult.
One has to accept the role of both, certainly allotting a higher share of credit to the bowler.
Let us close this discussion.

David, have you done any studies on whether it is spinners or fast bowlers who concede more byes (as a ratio of byes to the runs conceded by that type of bowlers) ?

DVC, there is no correlation between leg bye rates and bye rates. If you plot each keeper's bye rate against leg bye rate, you get a lot of scatter and the regression line is basically horizontal.

Vidhya, no I haven't looked at that. My ball-by-ball database for Tests isn't fully formed, and it'd take me a bit of time to get it working.

Byes / (balls * stumpings): Gives weird results, probably correlated to keeping ability, and of course this is viciously harsh on keepers like Dave Richardson and Jeff Dujon who weren't often keeping to spinners. Bob Taylor is at #39, far far too low. The top five, for the little it's worth, are Oldfield, Kirmani, Evans, Gilchrist, Healy.

I may try adjusting by prevailing stumping rates of the era, but that is enough for tonight.

Thanks David, happy to be proven wrong on the leg byes by a statistical analysis.

It's a pity the inclusion of stumpings wasn't more instructive. Though, that top 5 isn't too bad.

Of course, the equivalent to a bowling average for a keeper would be byes/dismissal.

We mostly seem to agree though, that this is going to be highly dependant on the bowling attack. More so than the bowling average for a bowler is dependant on the skills of their keeper and fielders.

I *suspect* that bowling averages are much, much more dependent on fielding than is commonly held, but this hypothesis is very hard to test.