Australia Test wicketkeeper Matthew Wade's mistakes costing team, former gloveman Ian Healy says
The former Test vice-captain lashed the Victorian gloveman's basics as unacceptable, overriding his 42.5 average and two centuries in his first nine matches since taking over from Brad Haddin in the Caribbean in April.
Healy told radio RSN's
Breakfast program that Wade's several missed stumping opportunities and tough dropped catches when standing up to the stumps added pressure to others trying to make their way in international cricket.
"Even some of the basic stuff that he's not tidying up - he's not getting to the stumps, he's not taking returns well (and) he's not sharpening up the fielding effort," Healy said.
"So even those basic disciplines weren't being created, let alone missed dismissals. I'm pretty sure Nathan Lyon wouldn't have been that happy - there were four or five chances missed from his bowling and he's getting criticised for not taking wickets. So these are all the little internal conflicts of an under-achieving wicketkeeper."
Healy said
Australia selectors should consider taking Haddin as a second keeper on the
Ashes tour.
"They haven't (taken a back-up) for a while, but they might do that again," he said. "I think Matthew could do with a practice partner and he could do with someone breathing down his neck to make sure he gets all those things done."
Healy said the unrivalled batting of his successor Adam Gilchrist had changed expectations of the national keeper to being an elite batsman.
But he said Gilchrist had a luxury Wade wasn't afforded - total "relevance to his team".
"He was appropriate for the team they had (at the time)," Healy said. "He had a team with a great bowling attack that created more chances than you needed.
"Now we haven't got an attack like that, we've got an attack that if you need 20 wickets in a Test, they might create 18 and you'd better take a half-chance here or there, or a great run-out, and you might get over the line.
"That's where you don't need a wicketkeeper missing stuff.
"And right now, the Australian cricket team in its Test form, needs the best wicketkeeper and we've got to find out who that is - someone who's not making mistakes."
Healy said he was unsure why Haddin, who was keeper in Friday's one-day international, had not been reinstated to the Test role.
He also downplayed Tasmanian Tim Paine's chances as an alternative with Healy preferring Chris Hartley as the country's top wicketkeeper.
