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[VIDEOS] What now for Mohammad Rizwan?

100% agreed with you.

A safe keeper is the ultimate requirement of test cricket & if they can contribute around 30-40 runs at 6 or 7 it's a great bonus.

Just listed all the good keepers from various countries in my post for both white and red ball cricket. Prior was the better keeper batter for England, but personally I rate Butler as well because he's one of those players who always turns up against us no matter what the format is even though his overall test record isn't that great. That said, we don't have anyone like Butler and that's the real point.
In white-ball a player like Butler is a game-changer, but in tests I'm not if I would select him at all. His glovework is good but not on the level of a Ben Foakes, who also falls in the specialist wicketkeeper category. I think Jamie Smith right now is the perfect guy for them who checks all the boxes and someone who has the most potential to be a Gilchrist-like player.
 
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Rizwan getting tagged with Babar (RizBar) was in hindsight extremely damaging for Riz. He's not one-dimensional and has the ability to play well in different circumstances despite his limited ability in stroke making.

He's also without doubt the best wicket keeper batter that Pak has ever had. Akmal showed a lot of promise in his first few seasons but he aged like milk, his batting never became consistent and his keeping remained abysmal. Man is the reason why we never won anything substantial despite having a decent bowling line-up for a short time in the late 2000s. The Sydney test, the English series famous for the forfeited test, & so many other overseas & home series were full of his match & series losing blunders.

Sarfraz was good as a batter on spinning tracks and our resurgence was a result of his skills but outside of UAE, he was unable to convert starts to meaningful scores. He was good but not great, although his ouster from the team was rushed. Both him and Rizwan had the case of playing together where one of them could keep while the other could play as a specialist batter.

Rashid was an above average keeper but a mediocre batter. Moin was clumsy behind the stumps and not a good red ball batter. He did have good hitting ability in white ball cricket & in my opinion, if he was in T20 cricket era, he'd do really well. Unfortunately for him, he missed the T20 gravy train.

Wasim Bari, Saleem Yousuf, Anil Dilpat, Saleem Altaf, and the others lived and played in an era where cricket was less frequent so it's hard to make their cases. Saleem Yousuf was considered a man of crisis & a true brave heart who always stood up for challenges so he has my respect but he ended up playing just 32 tests. While Bari is considered our first original keeping star but his batting stats are such that he cannot be considered as a batter. The others have a body of work which is just not worth mentioning.

Rizwan has a place in our cricket for the near future unless he loses form completely. He's still the best keeper in Pak and his batting while far from being perfect is good enough that he can even play as a pure batter. His real competition was Sarfraz and outside of that there's no real contender in any format who can totally replace him in almost any format.
Kami was very good at the start and then got a finger injury and pretty it finished him as top WK.
 
Saleem Yousaf as a man of crisis? I don't think there is a single memorable batting innings from him on Youtube.

Check his performance in the second innings of the test that led to the biggest series victory in cricketing history of Pakistan.

A player who perfected the art of small and brave cameos in a strong Pak team. A decent batting average in test cricket and someone who wasn't afraid of the WI fast bowling despite getting hit or being challenged by it. He was also nicknamed "man of crisis" by his peers and sports journalists of his time.

Him getting hit on the face in the 1987 world cup semi-final against Australia was a major reason of the loss that day.

Underrated player.
 
We need to group the keepers seperately because the had vastly different roles. Basically look at before and after Kamran.

Rizwan, Kami and Sarfraz are the only two modern era WK bats we have produced. The rest were traditional wicket keepers who could bat a bit as a bonus. The game evolved since those types of keepers were the norm.

Of the three, Rizwan edges Sarfraz in Test matches and both are comfortably better than Kamran.
One thing I’d say though is - as much as I find Kamran Akmal annoying, you can’t deny that Karachi innings - that was an ATG knock for the situation.

He’s played some very telling knocks.
Sarfraz played some clutch knocks vs the Aussies in 2014 too. Rizwan I struggle to remember a telling knock from him in tests.
 
One thing I’d say though is - as much as I find Kamran Akmal annoying, you can’t deny that Karachi innings - that was an ATG knock for the situation.

He’s played some very telling knocks.
Sarfraz played some clutch knocks vs the Aussies in 2014 too. Rizwan I struggle to remember a telling knock from him in tests.
yeah thats one of the great knocks in Pakistan history, it is a brutal knock to top for its impact. Even some of our best batsmen haven't played anything like it.

Rizwan is more dependable in Tests without having massive highs. He did score a good century in Pindi v South Africa that helped win the series, it was a tough pitch too and a good South Africa attack.
 
Saleem Yousaf as a man of crisis? I don't think there is a single memorable batting innings from him on Youtube.
Saleem was a good bat (in the era he played) but wasn't a top notch WK. He rep was further sullied by him claiming a catch at Headingly in 1987 of Ian Botham after he dropped the ball
 
You judge players by how may innings of theirs are on YouTube?

Its not about judging, if he played any good knock or memorable knock, there would be videos of it on social media. Saleem Yousaf was not known for being a good wicket keeper batsman.
 
Its not about judging, if he played any good knock or memorable knock, there would be videos of it on social media. Saleem Yousaf was not known for being a good wicket keeper batsman.
Did you watch him play? There probably weren’t any “memorable” knocks in the sense of giving you a highlights package. He wasn’t that type of player, but he played a lot of gritty knocks in key games down the order. For a keeper, he was a decent batsman for that time.

You can’t dismiss someone from the 80s as a useless player because you can’t see them on YouTube?

How many innings of shoaib Mohammad, Chris Tavare or Larry Gomes are on YouTube? Were they poor players?
 
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