Matthew Wade has finally called time on his international career, which lasted for 13 years, and it isn’t a surprise that he’s retired.
It’s more astounding that he played for Australia for over a decade – that most definitely was a surprise.
Wade was only hanging on because they kept picking him in the Australian T20 side.
But certainly, after the last World Cup that went on earlier this year in the USA and the West Indies, and Australia being knocked out early, it did feel as though his time was up.
There are so many keeper batsmen in Australia who can do the job that he does, not only Josh Inglis, but Alex Carey, Jimmy Peirson from Queensland, and even Sammy Harper from Victoria.
There are lots of opportunities for wicketkeeper batsmen coming through to do the same sort of job that Wade had done in that T20 team, and now they will have the opportunity to do so.
Wade’s playing career is now finished but plans to continue playing in the Big Bash for the next couple of years for the Hobart Hurricanes, where they will be hoping that he rediscovers his batting form at the top of the order, which helped propel them to the finals over the last few years.
But he’s also going to do some coaching, as that is apparently the direction he would like his post-playing career to go in.
Now, I’m really hoping that his coaching doesn’t involve wicket-keeping, because he basically is the worst gloveman ever to be chosen for Australia in Test cricket, and probably very close to the same in one-day cricket.
His ability to drop catches and miss stumpings and let byes through is equalled by no other in Australia’s Test history, certainly in the time I have been alive and watching cricket.
Mohammad Rizwan of Pakistan plays a shot while Matthew Wade watches on. (Photo by Michael Steele-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Of course, there have been a lot of wicket-keepers chosen for Australia over the years, and a lot of them played for a few tests back in the late 1800s or early 1900s that I can honestly tell you nothing about.
Wade first came into the team when Brad Haddin had to leave the West Indies tour in 2012 because his child was very ill, and then was able to retain the position on batting alone (somehow). Then Wade eventually lost his spot again because of his keeping, and Haddin came back into the team for the end of the series in India in 2013 and then dominated the Ashes series of 2013 and then at home in 2013/14.
On the following Ashes tour in 2015, Haddin was again forced to forgo his spot in the team due to his child’s illness and Peter Nevill came into the side and was retained for the whole series, at which point Haddin retired.
Nevill was an excellent gloveman and did the job admirably until we had the ‘Debacle of Hobart’, the Second Test between Australia and South Africa in 2016, where Australia was defeated by an innings – resulting in the resignation of the chairman of selectors Rod Marsh, replaced by a panel including old former selectors in Trevor Hohns and Greg Chappell.
In their wisdom, they decided that the best thing to do was to drop Peter Nevill, who had averaged 22 in test cricket at that point in time but had scored 23 and 60 not out in the first test of the series, and bring in Wade because they wanted someone who could score runs and be more proactive behind the stumps.
Well, he was certainly proactive with the mouth, but certainly not with the gloves -and the number of chances that he missed for Australia far outweighed any of the runs he actually scored.
(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Eventually, he was given the chop, and the selectors brought back Tim Paine for the 2017/18 Ashes, another man who was on the outer for a long time. So he’s certainly been the worst wicketkeeper ever chosen for Australia.
But having said that, I absolutely admired the way that he went about his cricket after he was dropped, and went back to Shield Cricket, and more or less basically decided he was going to get back into the Australian team as a batter only.
He just knocked down the door for two and a half years with the amount of runs he scored, until they were forced to select him on the amount of runs alone. Then to come back into that team on that Ashes tour in 2019, and then perform so well, was a credit to his tenacity and will.
Many will hopefully remember the century he scored in the second innings of that first test against England in 2019 when Steve Smith had scored his century in both innings and then Wade came out and just blazed the ball to all parts of the ground to get Australia to a score that allowed them to win that game.
I thought the way he did that was terrific. But again, he was unable to maintain that form once back in the Test team and he suffered the ignominy of being forced out of the Test team for a third time, because at the start of the series when he was dropped against India in 2020/21, there was no opening batsman available.
He put his hand up to open the batting when he didn’t have to and would have been suited not to, and then played two tests as an opening batter, and then was dropped because of a lack of runs.
If he’d just said to everyone, I’m happy batting at five, thanks, I’m going to stay here and make someone else do that, he may well have lasted longer in that team.
So for all of those things, as I said, his glove work was never great, and no one could ever possibly say that he should have been chosen for his glove work.
But as a guy who was so determined to come back as a batter only and get back into that team, where everyone would have written him off, and I wrote him off as well.
But just from the number of runs he scored, to bash down that door and get selected again, I think is a fabulous thing.
For me, that’s how I will remember Matthew Wade. Determined and gritty… but a terrible keeper.
>Cricket News
%20(3).jpeg)
0 Comments