Top Ten Wicket Keeping Tips By Rashid Latif

Rashid Latif, the former Pakistan Captain and Wicket Keeper offers his Top Ten Wicket Keeping Tips.

1. The art of wicket keeping involves immense concentration and physical fitness.

2. It is important for the wicket keeper to pretend that there is no batsman present and go through the process of taking every ball rather than watch the path of the shot after it is played.

Practice should involve keeping on both sides of the wicket and to left and right handed batters.

3. Wicket keepers should not only practice reflex catching and stumping but also work with the other fielders to develop their sprinting speed and the skills involved in high catching and executing run outs.

4.Wicket keepers must learn to concentrate during practice drills because they are dress rehearsals for matches.

Whilst training, wicket keepers need to practice their concentration by turning on their focus the moment the ball is thrown to a hitter and switching it off after they have caught the ball.

5. Keep both arms close to the body when taking the ball at the top of the stumps or from fast bowlers.

6. Wicket Keepers need to keep their body weight on their toes before delivery, making it easy to move both ways.

If the body weight goes to the heels then the weight shifts back and makes it very difficult for the keeper to move forward to take the ball or to dive.

7. With the three formats of cricket now, 20 20 Cricket , ODI and Test cricket, it makes it important to manage your focus.

The keeper should divide their work load into segments, in test cricket session by session, in ODI over by over and in 20 20 cricket ball by ball.

8. Position and mobility are critical to effective wicket keeping.

Too many wicket keepers nowadays are standing very FAR back from the stumps when keeping to fast bowling.

Stand further forward so that you can catch the ball comfortably at waist height, not below knee level.

The wicket keeper can then dive in flow and can catch low and high balls efficiently.

The wicket keeper should be nimble and lithe like a jockey so that they can dive and move easily.

9. Keep a positive attitude, no negative thoughts and talk while keeping

10. The most important thing in wicket keeping is to focus on the bowlers hand when the ball is released.

The keeper needs to learn the bowlers deliveries in practice.

To identify and understand which kind of delivery is coming, out swing, in swing, the googly, doosra ... then half the job is done.