Is there a lonelier player in cricket than a wicketkeeper, especially after he has dropped a catch? Is there a lonelier human in the world at that moment, perhaps with the exception of his football cousin, the goalkeeper, after a howler?
The loneliness in that moment is naturally exacerbated, because the wicketkeeper is the de facto leader of the fielding side. He is the one meant to keep spirits up, the player who reminds the team to forget the miseries – of a misfield or dropped catch – and concentrate on the glory the next moment will bring.
But when the wicketkeeper drops a catch? Sure, by virtue of standing day-long in the most-populated neighbourhood on the field, amid an entire slips cordon, he at least gets plenty of immediate sympathy.
But that must serve only to drive him further inward, making him lonelier. That kind of sympathy is comforting in the way a knife twisting in your heart is comforting.
In this way, generically, it is possible to feel sorry for Matt Prior. Only four Tests into the summer and a count of shame has begun, a tally of the number of chances he has missed.
A tiny consolation is that he has scored more runs than he has fluffed catches, though not by much.
Prior is a bristling presence, a description used in the interests of balance, because it captures both the usefulness to his team and aggravation to opponents. In recent years, he has been described as the heart of England. That works within the bubbled morality of this English set-up, because inside that bubble, James Anderson is a really, really nice bloke off the field.
Outside, where it has been obvious that England’s heart is not completely right, Prior assumes a different meaning.
It is no surprise that Cricket Australia saw it fit to put together an online video of his struggles, to a background score of bells tolling.
So, to feel bad for him only affirms the intrinsic loneliness of the role. You could turn the hunter in Bambi into a wicketkeeper and eventually feel sorry for him.
Some sympathy, to the non-technical eye, is a result of not knowing exactly what is going wrong, but understanding that there are a million, little technical minutiae that do go wrong.
But Prior has looked unmistakably slower and creakier. It is possible that he rushed back from an Achilles’ injury, and for a wicketkeeper, that is a crucial body part. But if true, he should not have been picked in the first place.
When they are not looking so lonely and miserable, we look at modern wicketkeepers as blessed, because they are now all-rounders. If they do have a bad day with the gloves, they can always better it with the bat.
On his good days, Prior was a handy batting enforcer, his momentum-changing capabilities outshining his glovework. Now though, even that has gone.
In the last year, he averages less than 25. On Saturday at Lord’s, in an ultimately insignificant and skittish 23, he simultaneously looked awesome and hapless, never more than in the 91st over.
Five balls out of six, he was defeated by Mohammad Shami, looking exactly like his year’s numbers. Yet he clipped one ball so pristinely through square leg that all troubles suddenly were as tangible as dust. Eight balls later, he was gone, the manner of his dismissal – to a short ball – now a telling pattern.
That brought to light the flip side of this new equation, not often commented upon. If a good wicketkeeper is an extra player, then a non-performing one makes a side two short.
In any case, this new equation has always been tricky.
The general truth with all-rounders is that performing in one discipline helps to perform in the other. The reverse also holds: poor form in one leads to poor form in the other.
But if a wicketkeeper is dropping catches, how many does he have to score to make up for them? The cost of a chance is not measured solely in the resulting runs. There is no calculation for the mood swing, for bowler and team, or the momentum shift.
Pakistan spent years asking this question and refusing to heed the answer, by continuing to pick Kamran Akmal. During a commentary stint in which Akmal dropped two catches, Ian Chappell reminded them: “If his batting was as good as Don Bradman’s, he couldn’t score enough runs to make up for what he costs them with his keeping.”
Akmal is relevant because Pakistan persisted with him too long. And like Prior, Akmal’s downturn began when he played on, despite an injury.
The sense that England are doing likewise with Prior is growing, so if he is feeling lonely now, the bad news is he may soon become far lonelier later.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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