Cometh the hour, cometh the annoying little bugger. If the wicketkeeper is the drummer in a cricketing band, Australia had ditched Charlie Watts and brought in Keith Moon.
Off the field, Matthew Wade is a likeable and popular cricketer, but if Australia were looking to change the conversation in Adelaide, the combative Tasmanian-turned-Victorian gave them the immediate benefit of his opinions. Though he was positioned behind the stumps, Wade's voice came from all angles. When South Africa's Stephen Cook was hit on the heel, Wade's nasal Taswegian whined past his ear, encouraging the bowlers to keep pitching it full. Later, Wade took the opportunity of a change of ends for a long pow-wow with Faf du Plessis. It's not sledging, it's not against the spirit of the game, but after a year and a half of Peter Nevill's mute intensity it was like going back and rediscovering the music you used to listen to.
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Second time lucky for Starc
Mitchell Starc's first wicket was foiled after he over-stepped before the fast bowler forced Dean Elgar into an error.
Wicketkeeping, like much in cricket, can be seen as a branch of stagecraft. Whereas Nevill evoked a classy jazz club, Wade brought to mind a concrete garage. In his sunglasses and handlebar moustache, he resembled a leader of a bikie gang – or at least the leader of something. Much as we would like cricket to be purely a game of skill, it is also a game of personality and mentality. Nevill did not project the volume that had been expected from an Australian gloveman. In fact, more was heard from Nevill at the Adelaide Oval, in recorded messages from the video scoreboard, than had been heard from him on the field this summer.
As Wade's faded baggy green cap reminded us, he was not a newbie but a returnee. There was a reason his Test career was interrupted after 12 appearances. He was discarded because of weaknesses in his wicketkeeping, in favour of Brad Haddin in 2013 and then leapfrogged by Nevill in 2015.
So how was Wade's actual wicketkeeping? Let it be said, first of all, that day one in Adelaide is not day four in Bangalore. Yet Wade's return was not without its challenges. The pink ball, for a colour-blind keeper, poses a unique conundrum, and the wicket was still to make its mind up on how lively it was, some deliveries coming through at knee-height and others above the head, occasionally swinging after passing the bat. Wade acquitted himself neatly by and large and, in the third over, spectacularly, with a leaping leg-side take off Mitchell Starc. He took a catch off JP Duminy's inside edge and was so excited he tossed the ball up almost before he had grasped it. There was a wide leg-side fumble off Starc and, when Nathan Lyon provided a new kind of test, there was one that slipped through both batsman and keeper. After tea, Wade left a ballooning chance off Temba Bavuma's glove that he might have gone for. Wade will never be a perfect gloveman, but there was a multifaceted package Australia were looking for, and his contribution will be judged on its totality. When Starc lost the wicket of Cook after over-stepping, it was Wade alone who sprinted down the field to cheer him up. When there was byplay and cheek among the fielders, it was Wade who sparked it. Laughter is the best medicine in a struggling cricket team as anywhere else, and for getting a laugh out of Steve Smith, Wade could also have a position on the team medical staff. The off-spinner Lyon also appeared to get some pep from Wade's partnership behind the stumps. "Nice, Garry!" will never quite match "Bowled, Warney!" in the keeper-bowler album of greatest hits, but Wade's encouragement did seem to play a part in Lyon's improved performance.
The call to drop Nevill was without doubt a harsh one, but it has a precedent. In 1970, the quiet, impeccable gloveman Brian Taber was dropped for a replacement who was abrasive and noisy in the cordon and promised to score more runs. By no means was Rodney Marsh a better keeper than Taber, but he improved over time. There is some historical irony in Marsh's resignation as chief selector coinciding with Wade's recall. If Wade can evolve into half the keeper Marsh was, the change will be vindicated. That fifth day in Bangalore is still to come (as is a fifth day, under lights, in Adelaide), but for now, Australia has a new drummer and the band has a new sound.
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