I pretty much agree that the best glove man should play, assuming they’re as competent with the bat as a Carey or Paine. I comment elsewhere that I’m not sure Carey actually is that good behind the stumps, but keeper is something I don’t really know how to judge.

No he wasn’t. He had flashes, including at least one series that I suspect showed ability beyond his successors, but let’s not get too rose glassed here.

First half of his career or so he was good, then he had a horror run and had to be replaced by Wade. Even on his return outside that Ashes it was pretty poor stuff. A career average of 32 and an FC average of 38 says he was capable; but not a batsmen

a lot of people said Haddin and Paine would miss out but in the end they didn’t.

What do you mean? They’re seven years apart in age?

Paine was a very unique situation, his injuries cost him a longer career, I think we may never have heard of Wade if his fingers had been up to earlier.

Who is the next younger keeper then? Philippe? Joel Curtis? There isn’t a lot.

Yeah this is a real problem, most of the ‘keepers are of a similar age; Carey in SA, Peirson in Qld, Inglis in WA. Doran in Tassie has never really worked out, so it’s a bit unclear.

It’s funny you say that, because his batting is apparently why Carey is so favoured. The interesting thing is that by all accounts Peirson is a better keeper. I’ll admit that despite playing a lot of cricket in my life, I know nothing about keeping, it never interested me and I only cared when they dropped catches off my bowling.

If it is objectively obvious that Peirson is a better ‘keeper, then we may well have missed the boat here, because Carey’s FC average is only 36, compared to Pereison’s 34. Now I admit that with a third of Carey’s FC games being tests matches, that means his ‘pure’ FC batting average would be a little bit higher (I can’t be bothered doing the math), but has it been worth it to have Carey in there, potentially averaging say 2 to 4 runs more with the bat, but worse with the gloves?

Don’t know why you’re telling me that. I have passed no opinion on Starc vs Boland

You did, this was your entire post:

If he keeps being left out, how will he gain overseas experience? Overseas experience hasn’t helped our incumbent quicks do well there.

That is clearly an ‘opinion’ on whether Boland or Starc should bowl.

Honestly mate, this is why I stopped engaging with you and this is why I’m going to stop again. It’s actually pointless, as in you genuinely never have a point, because you just speak nonsense.

Their batting position definitely matters – if you are being picked in the top 6 you are there first and foremost as a batsman

But again, that doesn’t help your point, if the debate is about their batting ability, then the clear, objective, statistics tells you that Carey is worse than just about every other major team’s keeper. They might have more chances to show it batting at six, but that doesn’t change the raw statistics (though I don’t even accept that there’s such a difference between 6 and 7, Carey has plenty of opportunities to score more runs and life his average and he doesn’t).

Beyond that I think we’re just going around in circles about the guys who haven’t played for a whole career yet, I’ll have to agree to disagree, though time will tell.

Inglis will be 30 in five weeks time or something, so unless Carey loses form badly, he won’t be 31 when Carey retires, maybe he’ll be 32, but even then I doubt it.

It’s a bit like the Head and Cummins captaincy conversation; it depends on how long Carey is in the team, if it’s more than 2 years, I reckon Inglis will miss out.

Sangakkara only has like 150 dismissals in his entire career behind the stumps, I’m not sure that’s long enough to put him in the class of Gilchrist as a keeper.

Yeah I’m not sure the batting position supports your argument though, that just suggests that teams are picking guys that can bat and we’re not. These guys all have FC averages that support the suggestion that they’re batsmen, while Carey’s FC average is what you’d expect, just a bit better than his test average.

Veryenne has played Australia and he scored two fifties and averaged 34 for the tour. Considering the failures of their top order that summer, he did well in a beaten team.

I’ve no doubt that Australia batsmen tend to have smaller FC averages these days, as they don’t play any county cricket as a rule and that many other teams FC averages are therefore higher, but let’s get real, the difference in the Shield is not such that Carey’s FC average of 34 is comparable to Veryenne’s 49 or whatever.

I really want to emphasise that I like Carey, I wouldn’t replace him and there’s no reason to copy what other teams do. My point was only to show that there’s a glaring issue here when comparing him to his peers, especially when the general consensus is that he’s only a ‘good’ keeper, not a great one and in fact, is a step down on the last guy.

Blundell had a poor 2024, but in the two years before that he played 15 tests and scored over 1,000 runs at about 45. He has five test centuries to Carey’s one. And when you look at averages, the lower you get, the more a difference of 2,3 or 4 runs is big – the difference between Carey averaging 31 and Blundell averaging 34 is significant – Carey is clearly a keeper, not a batter, where as Blundell’s average puts him just about into batsmen territory.

At 34 and average a bad year, he may end up dropped, but let’s be honest about his career, it’s very hard to see Carey ending up with that sort of batting record.

Veryenne can only play who’s in front of him. I’d again note that he has four test centuries to Carey’s single century. If you look at his FC average – 49! – and note he’s only in the infancy of his career, there’s every chance that Veryenne will end up being a very notable batsman.

I’m not sure what else there is to say average that, you accept Pant is better, Smith is yes in his early days, but if you look at his FC record – averaging 42 – and note his age, it again seems very likely he’ll end up a better batsman. Rizwan you also concede.

Bangladesh are actually spoilt for choice, they have Liton Das who averages 34 with four centuries or Rahim who averages 38 with 11 centuries after 92 tests.

Sri Lanka too are blessed, they have Mendis who averages 36 with 10 centuries, though has often played only as a batter and Chandimal who now only plays as a better, but averages 43 with 16 centuries and was capable even when keeper.

So again, Carey is probably just about the worst batsman going around in international keepers, until you drop into the dregs of the test nations.

It’ll take something for him to overtake Haddin.

He averages 2.21 dismissals an innings. Our test schedule is as follows:

1. 2025: Sri Lanka 2, Windies 3, Ashes 4
2. 2026: Ashes 1, RSA 3, NZ 3
3. 2027: NZ 1, India 5, Eng 1, Bang 2.

At this point he’ll be 35, about to turn 36. So that’s 25 tests, assuming we go to Bangladesh (currently doubtful). Even if you assumed he gets a full two innings in each one, that’s 110. That takes him only to 265. In reality, there’ll wash outs our instances where we only field once. So it’s quite likely he won’t even be on that many by then. He does seem fit, but I don’t thinks it’s guaranteed that his average dismissals stays that high, that his form with the bat holds and so on.

I also think it’s fair to say that the rest of the world is putting out a much more competent batter than Carey is. He’s perfectly fine, but between him, Paine and Haddin, it’s interesting that we’ve really only had a borderline capable of batsman at seven for pushing 20 years, while the rest of the world has got genuine batsmen as keepers.

If Starc is fit, he should play over Boland. It’s a no brainer. He’s a left, he’s faster, he is running into the correct side of the wicket for the offies, he’s a better batsman and fielder and he has experience in the conditions. It’s not actually a conversation of any sanity, Starc should play over Boland in Sri Lanka if we only play one quick.

Now I wouldn’t necessarily play just one quick, you’d hope they’ll assess the conditions and go from there, as we have the luxury of Webster opening the bowling if we do go with three spinners due to the deck.

It’s a straight forward conversation that is only being had because you dislike Starc (along with a number of other players, all of whom are oddly alleged to have been connected to the so-called coup on your man Langer).

The crazy thing is I don’t think he’s a troll, I think he’s genuine in his comments

That’s not my logic and it’s not what I believe, you’re just saying that because you have no response to being shown that what you said was wrong.

I’ll quote what you said again so that when you can’t misunderstand:

Overseas experience hasn’t helped our incumbent quicks do well there.

I have shown you that in fact, it has helped and that Starc had done well “there”, the exact place we’re touring.

Anyway always fun watching you founder around and mumble unrelated rubbish after being proven wrong. Thanks for my Tuesday fix.

No Rowdy, but one example doesn’t mean it’s a rule.

It may well be that there are no other candidates anyway due to the ages of the team, so it may well still happen

You didn’t say other countries, you said “there” (Sri Lanka).

That is classic Matt. Another reminder to us all that if Don said it, it almost certainly isn’t true lol

It’s just to save money, Sri Lanka doesn’t even want to play test cricket to be honest.

Overseas experience hasn’t helped our incumbent quicks do well there.

Starc has 29 wickets at 17.48 in Sri Lanka… so yes, he has done well there.

I wasn’t sure on his junior career, but usually when a guy has captained at various junior levels, its commented on, as it is with McSweeney.

Problem is there is no 25 year old bloke in the team. My issue with Green is he already has to much on his plate, likely to be the teams best batsman, bowling too and needed in gully where he’s one of the best in the world.

Ideally McSweeney comes good, has experiencing leading and winning, good age etc.

They’re not going to ditch Khawaja, if they were going to, they wouldn’t have selected him in the first place. With Smith potentially not playing, he’s now a 110% starter, whether you like it or not.

I don’t see the point in McSweeney opening, we’ve seen this show already, if the kids is to get another shot, let’s put in in the middle order and see how he goes.

There’s no rush to get Connolly in there, he has more than enough time.

This isn’t a good thing, Smith has scored multiple centuries in Sri Lanka and is an excellent player of spin.

But if he doesn’t go, you may as well embrace the opportunities. I definitely would not put Head to open, I’d just swap in McSweeney at four for Smith. So that means I’d go Khawaja, Konstas, Labuschange, McSweeney, Head, Webster, Carey, Starc, Lyon, Murphy and Boland. I’ve assumed that Kuhn is not playing due to injury as well.

If Smith recovers in time, I’d ditch Labuschange and slot Smith into three for the second test.

It depends how long Cummins does it for. If he were to give it away in the not to distant future, Head’s probably the front runner.

But if Cummins decides to do it for another two years or whatever, then no, I’d say Head’s time will have passed.

I don’t think anyone thinks they’re as good as those great Aus and WI teams. I just think the level of disrespect shown to them by many (not you), is bizarre and hard to fathom