The Spin | Standing up to be counted: Tom Blundell leads brave new brand of wicketkeepers

They say the best wicketkeeping performance is the one you don’t notice. But that’s not entirely true. Take Tom Blundell’s masterclass at the Oval this past week. Standing up to the stumps against New Zealand’s opening bowler Matt Henry, the Black Caps gloveman was impossible to ignore.

Henry’s 11 for 109, and tons from Glenn Phillips and Henry Nicholls, have been recorded in the scorebooks for posterity, but those who witnessed the lightning-quick hands and immense courage shown by Blundell will know that his contributions were just as integral to the fabric of New Zealand’s 253-run win.

Coming up to the stumps, Blundell stole the pitch from England’s batters. Joe Root and Harry Brook, two players who like to disrupt a seamer’s length, were forced to play where they stood. As the geometry tightened, so did their approach. A ball on a nagging length became a threat to their front pad, their off-stump and their outside edge. Balls that previously looked like appetising throw-downs suddenly carried a degree of menace.

Brook’s dismissal in the second innings was a perfect case in point. Henry found his edge and though Blundell couldn’t grab it cleanly, his cushioned deflection made the job simple for Daryl Mitchell at slip. It might have looked scruffy, but it was a consequence of all the great work that had come before it. Blundell was close enough to make Brook think, brave enough to stay there, and skilful enough to keep the chance alive.

“You have to think like a tiger,” says Ben Cox, Leicestershire’s wicketkeeper and one of the best on the County Championship circuit. Cox is remembering an old lesson from Steve Rhodes, his mentor at Worcestershire. “Everything has to be relaxed, but your mind has to be like a predator.”

Cox would stand up to almost anyone. Not Shoaib Akhtar, he laughs – “I wouldn’t want a death wish” – but he has done it to bowlers in the high 80s and sees the position not as a chore but as a stage. “Standing up to the stumps, in my opinion, is where I can show off,” he says. “It’s the platform where I can show that I am better than the other keeper that I’m playing against.”

Cox mentions Alex Carey who, like Blundell, warranted his own highlights package by standing up to Michael Neser and Scott Boland in the most recent Ashes. It was one of the rare occasions where a piece of cricket that usually exists in the margins was made visible. And beyond the tactics at play – keeping England’s batters pinned in their crease – it was simply beautiful to watch. Carey’s hands seemed to move only as far as they needed to: no snatch, no stab, just a soft little give and the ball disappearing into the webbing. It had an ASMR quality: the tiny clap of leather on leather, the awkward scratching of the batter’s spikes on the pitch, the soft purrs from the commentators.

For keepers such as Cox, Carey and Blundell, the toughest challenge comes not in the form of spitting deliveries from a length, but in the potentially bruised egos of fast bowlers.

“I have to beg the bowlers to do it,” Cox says. He understands why. A keeper up to the stumps can look like an insult, a public announcement that the bowler is not as sharp as he imagines. At club level, the feeling is almost comic. At a professional level, with cameras, speeds and clips waiting to be dissected, it can become a genuine barrier.

Vernon Philander offers a view from the other end. The South Africa seamer was never more than medium-fast, and yet he terrorised international batters with his unnerving accuracy and ability to nip it both ways. He claimed 224 Test wickets at 22.32 apiece from 64 matches. In many of them the keeper was stationed just behind the sticks.

“You simply have to park your pride,” Philander says with a chuckle, revealing that this was often easier said than done. “Whenever I felt a little insecure about it, I just reminded myself that this was a way for me to be more effective.”

Philander is clear, though, that the tactic demands discipline from the bowler as much as bravery from the keeper. “Visually everything changes for you,” he says. “I’ve seen so many times that when the keeper gets up, you almost see bowlers dragging it a touch shorter, then being hooked and cut. It’s also a skill and an art to bowl with the keeper up.”

Which is why the Blundell-Henry partnership worked so well. Blundell advanced, Henry did not retreat. The keeper applied pressure in front of the batter’s eyes, the bowler kept asking the same question at the top of off-stump.

For the batter, the intrusion is psychological before it is technical. Cox is not a sledger. “I’ve never sledged anyone in my life,” he says. His menace is positional. “It certainly gets inside the batter’s plans.” There is no need for verbals when the batter can feel the keeper’s breath on his neck. Bowled and lbw come back into play. So, absurdly, does the stumping. “I’ve racked up a pretty good collection to seamers,” Cox proclaims, guessing he’s bagged about 35 in his career. “The ones down leg are particularly special.”

Perhaps, thanks to a small but growing cohort of brave and agile keepers, the old adage needs a rethink. The best wicketkeeping performances aren’t the ones that go unnoticed, but are the ones that hog the spotlight.

This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.