WICKETKEEPING is one department in which England have probably had an even deeper pool of talent than their rivals overseas. Trends in the game make it imperative to choose someone who is going to score sufficient runs to be in effect a second all-rounder, but were that not so, England could offer men such as Godfrey Evans, Arthur McIntyre (a good enough batsman to have scored more than 1,000 runs in a season three times), Keith Andrew, John Murray (who actually did keep wicket for a Rest of the World team against Barbados and excelled with an elegant century), Bob Taylor and Jack Russell.

Like Evans, Russell scored two Test centuries and he made his Test runs at a final average seven runs higher. However, the conundrum is whether Evans was by so much the most brilliant wicketkeeper since the war that he should take precedence over Alan Knott and two men who turned themselves into sparkling wicketkeepers but who both got picked originally as batsmen: Jim Parks and Alec Stewart.

Evans was, of course, a priceless asset. He could fling his India-rubber figure at genuine leg glances that would have gone sailing past any lesser gymnast. Neil Harvey, for one, has never forgotten how four runs were turned into instant dismissal. Evans, too, was truly the life and soul of the teams he played for, ebullient to the end of the hottest and most dispiriting days.

Happily, there is an obvious compromise candidate. Knott was an impish genius behind the stumps, a tremendous competitor, more consistent, if less dazzling, than the great Godfrey, but also a fine batsman with an original method, or many original methods, for he was a great improviser. His all-round qualities, not excluding immense character when the chips were down and eccentricities that amused all around him, enabled him to keep Taylor out of the team, despite the natural polish of everything done by that long-serving stalwart of Derbyshire.

Knott would, moreover, be as likely to score runs when they were most needed as either Parks or Stewart. The last of his five hundreds was the 135 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1977, made in company with Geoff Boycott after England had been 82 for five. It turned the series. He was a less attractive batsman than the quick-footed Parks, with his long-handled drives and general panache; and a lesser one against fast bowling than Stewart, whose hundreds in each innings in Barbados in 1994 were scored against Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh at their peak and paved the way to an England victory utterly against the tide.

Stewart's back-foot technique and effortless timing have triumphed frequently against fierce fast bowling and were it not for a relative vulnerability against spin bowling (recently improved but not quite eliminated) the case would certainly be made for him as first choice.

He has been a remarkably reliable wicketkeeper, too, and 14 hundreds amid more than 7,000 runs put him at least half a class higher as a Test batsman than the admirable Knott. But the old argument has to be conclusive: the half-chance taken behind the stumps, standing back or up, can sometimes be worth far more than extra runs here and there and Knott, nimble as a mouse, would be more likely to change direction and grasp a snick falling to the feet of the batsman via his body than any other wicketkeeper. He is the man.

The field for the Rest of the World is relatively short of keepers of the necessary quality who could also be relied upon for runs. A Test average of 37 puts Denis Lindsay high on the list, with Farokh Engineer, the livewire Parsee with the buccaneering blade, and Imtiaz Ahmed, who, like Farokh, opened the batting in Test cricket with success and who claimed 80 victims behind the stumps on Pakistan's first tour to England, in 1954.

There is a tempting category of high-class Test batsmen who also kept wicket for their countries, headed by the formidable Clyde Walcott and Rohan Kanhai for West Indies and joined most recently by Andy Flower, who, just for a time, was No 1 on the list of world batsmen in the PricewaterhouseCoopers ratings. For sheer character under pressure, underpinned, clearly, by rare ability, Flower, of Zimbabwe, is on the very short list, beside five men whose wicketkeeping is or was of a higher standard: John Waite, of South Africa, Jeff Dujon, of Jamaica, and three Australians, Rodney Marsh, Ian Healy and Adam Gilchrist.

Of Waite's 23 first-class hundreds, four were scored in Tests. He was a polished performer, whichever side of the stumps he was standing. No more so, however, than Dujon, one of my favourite cricketers. He played with a smile for a team that for some time looked almost invincible, flinging himself upwards, forwards and sideways with a graceful relish to feed off fast-moving edges as a dolphin does off fish in an oceanarium. He was a beautiful batsman to watch, too, a classical driver and cutter.

Like Marsh, Dujon spent most of his time standing back to great fast bowlers. He scored two more Test hundreds (five) than that rugged Aussie, who was a trusted, salty presence in the mighty team that gave his beloved country the prominent role in the upheavals in the world game in the late 1970s. For all Marsh's character and quality, however, the choice boils down to the two most recent inheritors of his baggy green cap.

Healy could only have been red-haired. He was like a wire-haired terrier, pursuing the Australian cause in matches as if the opponents were rabbits whose holes were never deep enough to escape him. His wicketkeeping was outstandingly reliable, whether up to the stumps for Shane Warne or back for the likes of Craig McDermott or Glenn McGrath. And he scored well in excess of 4,000 Test runs, more through determination, hard practice and common sense than any great ability.

Gilchrist, however, is something else. It is premature to make final judgments about his quality, but there is sufficient evidence already to suggest that he may become one of the great Test cricketers. As a wicketkeeper, especially for a relatively tall man, he has quick hands and natural co- ordination. Keeping to Warne and Stuart MacGill, when they are spinning leg breaks and googlies past batsmen, often from round the wicket into the rough, demands intense vigilance and skill.

He took to that job supremely well from the start but it was his clean and simple left-handed driving, cutting and pulling that raised eyebrows and thrilled crowds.

He scored 81 in his first Test innings and 149 not out in his third to pull the chestnuts from the fire when Pakistan looked sure to win in Hobart in 1999 2000. In successive series against India, New Zealand and England he went on to make a hundred in the important first match of each rubber. He may be Australia's regular captain one day and he becomes, unexpectedly, the first Australian in my Rest of the World team; but not the last.

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