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Just over a year ago, Matthew Wade was Australia’s first choice gloveman in all forms of the game.
A short, gritty keeper-batsmen, whom Ian Healy once saw as becoming Australia’s best keeper-batsmen behind Gilchrist, Wade had the world at his feet.
Sadly, it seems as though Wade has dropped off the face of the cricketing world in the past two years, going from Australia’s number one wicketkeeper to sitting behind Sam Whiteman and Peter Nevill in the waiting line.
What the hell has happened? Is it his batting? Surely not.
Wade has a Test average of 34, nothing to be embarrassed of from a wicketkeeper, and along with a first class record of just a tick under 40, the Victorian captain has immense talent with the bat.
Sadly, it is the work behind the stumps that has led Wade from keeping for Australia to being preffered as a batsmen instead of a keeper in Australia A’s recent series against South Africa A.
It is funny however, how people have suddenly condemned Wade as an atrocious keeper, and calling for him to give up the gloves. Wade was sound as a wicketkeeper in his first few months as the Australian gloveman.
In the tour of the West Indies, he was technically strong and looked at home, taking easy stumpings and catches off Nathan Lyon, those which he would soon later miss.
The turning point seemed to be the South African series, in which Wade started to let the pressure get to him. He began to drop regulation catches off Lyon, and would miss stumpings that grade cricketers would take with their eyes shut.
As the pressure mounted, Wade succumbed. But then, a blazing hundred came in Sydney against the Sri Lankans and his spot was secured. For the moment.
As Wade scored more heavily, his wicket-keeping began to detonate. He would miss crucial catches and stumpings that could cost Australia the game, and the more chances he missed, the heavier the pressure mounted.
It is sad to see such a quality cricketer like Wade go to waste. It does not seem like Wade, who should have been a 50 to 70 Test match cricketer, will implement himself as a consistent member of the Australian XI again.
Wade, to most, is a more talented batsmen than his now replacement, Brad Haddin, and could be a better keep when he had his day. But Haddin, who had his share of mental problems with cricket, returned with a vengeance in the Ashes series in England.
It seems as though after Haddin was forced to cope with his daughter’s horrific disease, he stopped caring as much about cricket and returned to the game with a love, rather than a fear.
Wade currently fears the art of wicket-keeping. He is afraid of making an error, dropping a catch or missing a stumping. If that does happen, he will put even more pressure on himself not to miss the next one.
It is funny how pressure and fear can overcome the best of us. Wade, at just 16, had to fight to overcome testicular cancer, which nearly took his young life.
Why is there fear of dropping a cricket ball?
The same has affected everyone though at some point, with the likes of Fawad Ahmed, who had his life threatened and went through hell and back just to get to Australia, still facing the pressure of being hammered out of the ground.
Damian Martyn, Matthew Hayden, Andrew Caddick, Steve Harmison, everyone at some stage has succumbed to this immense pressure of Test cricket.
However, it is the ability to come back from this scrutiny and to overcome your mental battle to perform at your best that Wade needs to harness.
Maybe the captaincy of Victoria was designed to free Wade up, not to focus on his keeping as much, but to focus on his captaincy. This would make sense, as it would provide a helpful distraction from his keeping and just let what is natural take over.
Wade may break back into the Australian side in the next few years, who knows, stranger things have happened. But it seems unlikely, as he seems to have missed the opportunity presented to him.
Whatever the case, do not forget that Wade is a quality wicketkeeper, but nerves and pressure have reduced him to an extremely poor man’s Adam Gilchrist.
But if Wade can overcome this pressure and these nerves, he surely can return to the Australian set up. Wicketkeepers are born, not made, and Matthew Wade was certainly born a wicketkeeper.
He just needs to rediscover that touch once more.
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