A tale of two keepers
Mohammed Rizwan and Alex Hales saw a contrasting change of fortunes in 2019
In March 2019, England had just wrapped up a tour of the West Indies with a 3-0 win in the T20I series. While he himself didn’t have a great tour, Alex Hales was hitting 13% of balls to the boundary in ODIs (for reference, Jason Roy was just above 10% at the time) and fit very well into England’s plans for the upcoming World Cup. That was until he got banned for recreational drug use and England decided to not just ban him for 21 days, but also dropped him from what eventually was a victorious World Cup campaign.
By March 2019, Pakistan’s now adored wicket-keeper Mohammed Rizwan had only gotten a handful of chances. A solitary test, 13 T20Is where Rizwan jumped from number 3 to 8 averaging just 16, and an ODI record (excluding minnows Bangladesh, Zimbabwe) with 1 half-century in 19 innings weren’t much to write about. Then he scored a couple of 100s vs Australia in UAE and while it didn’t help Rizwan make the World Cup squad, it announced his batting abilities to the world.
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Since then, Hales has played at Big Bash, CPL, PSL, and the T20 Blast, and his numbers just seem to get better. There’s little doubt that a record like his would have resulted in a national call-up in any other country and only England has the luxury of ignoring him with Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow doing a fantastic job.
Ashley Giles, MD for England’s Men team, revealed to Nasser Hussain on The Sky Sports Podcast back in March that he was scheduled to talk with the agent of Alex Hales, and that he was still in contention for England. And yet, his name appears to be missing from Ben Stokes-led team set to face Pakistan this week in the absence of the first-choice squad that played Sri Lanka.
Nine uncapped players have been selected but England has stayed away from Alex Hales who has more than 130 LOIs under his belt. While many have defended the decision by saying it would upset the dynamic of the team, (reasonable if the captain/coach feels that way), that has not been communicated clearly to the public and likely even Hales himself. Despite the mistakes of his past, it’s certainly a shame for a very talented 32-year old to not have clarity on his career prospects.
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Post the World Cup of 2019, Rizwan was picked for the Australia tour at the end of the year. In his comeback test, Rizwan’s 95 in the 4th innings (along with Babar Azam’s 104) took Pakistan from 95/5 to a respectable 335. The wicket-keeper from Peshawar showed he had a solid defensive game and paired that well with shots square of the wicket on both sides. After showing he had all the shots in Australia, Rizwan then showed he had the brains to manage the tail as he top-scored with a smart 72 in England the next summer.
This was just the 1st of his 5 consecutive fifties in Test Cricket in tough conditions across England and New Zealand against two talented bowling line-ups. While his glovework was never in doubt, his LOI record was still up for debate, particularly his strike rate in the T20 game. He responded by scoring 89 vs New Zealand, 104* vs South Africa in Lahore, and then two unbeaten 70s in South Africa - all at a strike rate of 148 or higher to give Pakistan a win each time. Leading Multan Sultans to their 1st PSL title in June this year was the icing on the cake for Rizwan.
While these knocks and achievements don’t change the fact that he is still a slow starter in T20s, he seems to have the consistency to turn enough of these starts into match-winning knocks, at least for now. Bringing this form into ODIs is probably the last piece of the puzzle for Rizwan but there is little doubt that he has a chance to stake a claim as the world’s best Test wicket-keeper batter in the Men’s game.