The traditional New Year's Tests were shifted from January 2 to January 3 this year and South Africa and England at Newlands and Australia and New Zealand at Sydney kickstarted international cricket in 2020. However, a series of bizarre events meant that England and New Zealand weren't at full strength for this Test match.
While England had Jofra Archer, Rory Burns and Jack Leach out injured, New Zealand had skipper Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls out. Trent Boult had already been ruled out of the Test match. With resources slim, New Zealand had to fly in Glenn Phillips at the last minute.
Tom Blundell had earlier replaced an out of form Jeet Raval at the top for New Zealand and had scored a century as opener at the MCG. England, meanwhile, had Burns ruled out of the entire series with an ankle injury. Jofra Archer had an elbow injury and was ruled out of the Test. Jack Leach had broken a thumb and Dom Bess was debuting.
All of the injury concerns for the two visiting sides - England and New Zealand - meant that a slew of replacements were in line to play. What was bizarre as the matches started was that the four teams had 10 keepers playing. Even considering an additional keeper qualified to play as a batsman, this was a rather whopping number of keepers.
New Zealand had BJ Watling behind the stumps, but also had Tom Blundell and Glenn Phillips, who are keepers, playing in the same team. Tom Latham, their opening batsman at the top, is also an irregular wicket-keeper which means that New Zealand were fielding four keepers in the same match.
England, on the other hand, had Jos Buttler behind the stumps but replaced Jonny Bairstow with Ollie Pope. But it did not reduce the number of keepers in the team because Pope himself is a wicket-keeper although he doesn't always keep.
The hosts, Australia and South Africa, had three keepers in all with Australia having Matthew Wade in addition to Tim Paine. South Africa have just Quinton de Kock as keeper in their line-up.
If Jonny Bairstow had also played in addition to Ollie Pope, England might have fielded three keepers and the count of keepers in the day would have gone up to 10. But with nine wicket-keepers in two Test matches, international cricket in 2020 has gotten off to a resounding start.
Feature image courtesy: AFP / Marco Longari
