Matt Prior

BY  EHSAN KHAN

England’s most successful wicket keeper in test after Alan Knott retires from all forms #cricket after losing battles to Achilles injury which he picked up last year & forced him to sit out during last phase of Indian series in 2014.

Prior’s career starts with a sparkling century on debut against West Indies in 2007. The journey begins & Prior was rated as one of the best wicket keeper batsman’s in test matches. In all he accumulates 4099 test runs for England at an average of 40 runs per innings with 7 test centuries & behind the wickets he was also a consistent performer; he ends his career as England’s second most successful wicket keeper with 256 dismissals to his name. Prior’s strike rate in test was above 60; as many a time he helps England to get some quick runs down the order when it needed. He also played some resilient knocks to save England form defeats. Just as in his last test century against Newzeland in 2013, he saves the day for England as he was standing between the victory & Newzeland as new Zeland just needed one wicket to win but Prior’s effort doesn’t allow them to do so.

With his aggressive approach in test it seems obvious that he will get success in shorter formats of the game too but it didn’t happen as he only featured in 68 oDI’s in his 7 year career & last of those he played against Srilanka in quarter finals of the World Cup 2011. In his 62 attempts to the batting crease during his ODI stint he scored just above 1200 runs with only 3 fifties & best of 87 runs. He was also not very impressive in T20’s as he only featured in 10 T20 for English team.

His major career highlights was to keepwickets in three victorious Ashes campaigns for England & also performed well with the bat during those series. Named in ICC’s test team of the year in 2012. He was the part of the side when England rose to # 1 position in test cricket. He as also named wisden cricketer of the year in 2010 & also holds the record for the most dismissals in a ashes series by English wicket keeper when he helped England bowler 23 times to dismiss Australian batsman during 2009 series.

He was also a terrific performer for his county Sussex as he scored close to 13000 runs with 28 centuries including a double ton (201 not out); he also achieve feat of dismissing 683 batsman’s with his clean keeping abilities.

In all he has a satisfying career achieving many a heights but if he can play for 3 or four years more he can ended up England’s finest wicket keeper as he only needs 13 more dismissals to equals Allan Knott record of 269.