Custom Bats Cricket Forum
General Cricket => Cricket Training, Fitness and Injuries => Topic started by: Cin88 on May 28, 2015, 11:59:36 PM
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My club is desperately in need of proper keepers at both 1st and 2nd team level and this week the 2nd team captain is being forced to keep because the usual keeper is unavailable. I've long been thinking about taking up keeping because I seem to catch better from the slip/gully type positions than I do out in the deep, and with the shortage of specialist keepers I see it as my way out of being on the fringes of the club and into a regular spot in either squad. The 2nd team captain seems to be in favour of me becoming a keeper, so i'm considering taking it up. I haven't kept since the school PE days where we played indoors (where i'd often shove myself in a close position anyway to wind up the Flintoff wannabes) so any advice as to technique that you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Also, does anyone have any kit recommendations? I've budgeted for £30-40 each for gloves and pads. I'll probably have to get youth sized gear like I do with batting pads and gloves, would this be an issue gloves wise against the full adult ball?
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I'm doing the same myself this Aussie season mate. I've played a few social games and, so far, no broken fingers and I'm loving it.
Probably should put this post in the Keeping thread.
I got gear on eBay fairly cheap. Took a bit of trial and error with pads as I like to wear pads under the trousers.
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If I was on a budget I would always go as cheap as I could on pads and put as much as I could into the gloves. On a side note, anyone taking up keeping has rocks in their heads.
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Rubbish Skip. Give the bloke some encouragement.
I completely agree on your advice on equipment though 👍
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I had to do the same this year, and I'm loving it. It keeps you involved in the game every ball , even if you fail with the bat it still gives you something to feel satisfied after the game. As others said try to buy a good pair of gloves, quality of the pads are not that important really, I just went for the lightest option I can afford.
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Stay low, keep your eyes on the ball and keep your hands together.
Easy Peasy!
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Stay low, keep your eyes on the ball and keep your hands together.
Easy Peasy!
And catch the ball ;) :)
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And catch the ball ;) :)
Woah, you must be a proper keeper! :o
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I'll probably go cheap on the pads and use the leftover money as part of the gloves budget, i'm not going to be ordering online though because of my awkward hand size, i'll have to take a trip to my local specialist I think.
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Awkward hand size?...
Go on then... are they tiny? Huge? Or is one hand a different size to the other? :-)
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once you have the inners on a normal sized adult glove will be ok
make sure it has leather inside it and not cotton
I have a used pair for sale or can sort out a brand new set of gloves and pads for £80 .... top of the range stuff
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I have some top of the range Warsop pads and gloves I bought off @Soulman which I'm not going to use this season.
£50 for both
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Top piece of advice I've always passed on is to always stay down until the ball pitches then come up with the bounce, and if you are keeping to decent quicks wear two pairs of inners.
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Fair play mate. Just have to watch the drills on YouTube and train hard and you'll be a great keeper
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Think if it's something you want to do. I've done it too after my knees have refused to bowl anymore and I'm probably now first choice keeper, which makes it difficult if said knees are struggling and I need a week off. Not only that but it also affects my batting, particularly if we're batting second. My feet get very heavy and don't move so much which leads to getting out with some woeful shots.
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Awkward hand size?...
Go on then... are they tiny? Huge? Or is one hand a different size to the other? :-)
Tiny, only 17cm (ish) from wrist to tip of middle finger, which apparently puts me in boys sized gloves, which I know as a fact are going to be too tight. I'm hoping to go down to my local specialist at some point to try stuff on.
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Think if it's something you want to do. I've done it too after my knees have refused to bowl anymore and I'm probably now first choice keeper, which makes it difficult if said knees are struggling and I need a week off. Not only that but it also affects my batting, particularly if we're batting second. My feet get very heavy and don't move so much which leads to getting out with some woeful shots.
As I said in another topic, i'm stuck at number 10 in the order so it won't make much difference to my batting. Its honestly the only way I see myself getting out of the ball wipe position (as described by a senior 2nd team player) in the team.
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Don't try to catch it with your finger tips as I found out on Sunday. Broken finger but soldiering on. My team need me (inspirational music in the background)
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Don't try to catch it with your finger tips as I found out on Sunday. Broken finger but soldiering on. My team need me (inspirational music in the background)
Thumbs are similarly ineffective as I have found out to my cost this year :(
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Just gonna stick my 2p in here....
Keeping is not just something you can pick up over night.
just because you can catch doesn't mean you will make a good keeper.
i have had to field in a few t20 games and ive been asked to go to slip and gully etc and i cant cope with not being able to see the line of the ball.
iv'e done it from being 12 and my dad was a keeper to so guess it was in my blood. These are just my Views and what works for me. i've never had coaching just been left to get on with it.
It will take lots of hard work and learning to catch the ball different as you have to have much softer hands.
gloves do play a big part id always get really soft gloves.
like someone said on the 1st page cheap pads expensive gloves!
I am using b3's at the moment but they are on there way out :(
picked up some newbery SPS's but cant get used to them.
2 bits to keeping standing back and standing up.
Standing back is easier of the 2 you can see the ball all the way into the gloves and have more time to react.
Every pitch is different so where you stand to your bowlers will change.
A lot of new keepers i see not standing close enough and are taking the ball on the bounce or low to the floor. this makes the job harder.
Standing up requires more attention make sure you have a comfortable stance feet wide apart and rise with the ball .
your foot work is key here as is having soft hands.
i see some keepers when they are stood up they have there hands actually in between there legs when they crouch. This is not good as you need to move your hands quicky. You will find you have to pull them in front of your legs first then move them to catch the ball. your gloves should be in front of your feet and your body weight slightly forward.
To sharpen your reactions and to soften your hands practice with a tennis ball.
stand in front of a brick wall get a friend to throw the ball at it from behind you and use your feet and hands to catch the ball.
tennis balls will pop out often if you don't get it right.
leg side is pure guess work! you can only follow the ball so far once it goes down the batter will be in the way of the ball. so take a step down leg and try and guess the length.
leg side half volleys tend to be the hardest.
as for fitness i am 28 years old and weigh 24 stone.
I don't have any fitness issues with keeping 1st and batting second. but im guessing this is because my body is used to it.
I know when people have started keeping there legs ache for days after. you just have to get your body used to the added pressure on different muscles your not used to using as much
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you know a good keeper when he is still crouching when a yorker is bowled and dug out
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easier said than done that tho lad lol
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When i was with Durham many many years back the 1st team keeper there told me to focus on a spot on the pitch and that is it .... dont follow the ball look at the pitch and then track it once it has bounced.
Very weird to do but it works
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When i was with Durham many many years back the 1st team keeper there told me to focus on a spot on the pitch and that is it .... dont follow the ball look at the pitch and then track it once it has bounced.
Very weird to do but it works
That wasn't Andy Fothergill was it?
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I picked up some gear today as my local specialist was giving a 15% discount in the shop for Xpro gear, I don't know when i'll be able to practice though thanks to an ever annoying problem with getting a lift down to the club.
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That wasn't Andy Fothergill was it?
no, he was Darlo keeper and did play a few games for durham
It was Ligetwood or Pratt i think
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no, he was Darlo keeper and did play a few games for durham
It was Ligetwood or Pratt i think
Played a few games with Andy when he turned out for his village side Ingleton ten years or so ago
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i can't do the "pick a spot" technique, i have to watch the ball from the hand.
my keeping has developed a lot over the last few years and i'll now stand up to all but the quickest bowlers in our club. agree with simmy - leg side is guesswork, but it's educated guesswork based on the probably length of the ball. if you've bowled a leg side half volley that's five wides, sorry!
being tall i cope with the rising ball well, it's the one that's over pitched or stays low that catches me out! i also think it helps my batting having to watch the ball at all times...
you do have to be a little bit mad to be a keeper though, you're going to be in pain more often than anyone else.
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I've never been one for taking the sensible option, a little pain here and there is nothing some ibuprofen and pepsi/coke/energy drink can't solve at tea, it only takes the addition of ibuprofen as the change to my usual tea time routine.
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I personally find it best when standing back to adopt a more slip catch bodily position. Saves you getting up from a crouch everything and I find it's better for my foot movement
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Standing back is pretty easy. If you can't do that wicketkeeping isn't going to be your thing. Look at Dhoni, he doesn't even bother crouching when stood back.
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Finally had a go with the gloves on at training today, bit hit and miss thanks to inexperience (footwork and overhead catching being the main issues) but overall positive. Might have been better to start off slow though, rather than being thrown off the deep end with some fairly fast throwing from the malicious senior players during fielding drills, I swear they were deliberately aiming for my head.
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Give it a while and you'll be thankful for the ones at your head as they aren't half volleys.
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the idea is to aim at your head
........... YOu need to catch those at your head in the cup of the glove by overlapping your hands where the cups are.
I can agree with that bloke who says if you cant stand back and take 99.99% of all balls ........... then give up now.
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I have found since i have gone up a standard.
and i am keeping to a few quicker bowlers after the ball has passed the bat some times it likes to swing about in between passing the batsman and hitting my gloves.
keeps you on your toes that little bit more!
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There's only one properly quick bowler in the seconds and he opens the bowling so he'll probably the only one that i'm stood back to. I've not seen the other opening bowler bowling in a match this year though because of his knee problems so i'll probably need to adjust on the fly for him, from batting against him in the nets it looks like he's lost a fair bit of pace so standing up is probably going to end up being the preffered way of doing things.
I was taking a lot that were bouncing during slip practice yesterday, even when I moved to about 2/3 yards back from the bat, that was somewhat frustrating. How they can go from trying to take my head off (i've since been told that they were actively trying to hit me in the head as a joke) to not being able to throw a ball onto the bat cleanly enough for the coach to hit it to me on the full is beyond me. But oh well, situations in matches where it isn't carrying will happen so I suppose its not all wasted time.