Alan Knott was the kind of player any side would want to have both as a batsman and wicket-keeper, invaluable. He was certainly a thorn in our flesh. Great player!
In the Georgetown test of 1968 - Alan made 73 not out off 260 deliveries to help save the match however 60 of those runs were made off 15 deliveries!! (15 fours). - He was just as adept at playing a long, 'Tavare - esque' innings as well as his trademark counter attacking innings.
This is the 1st time i have noticed Alan Knott and i must tell that he seems like All Time best wicketkeeper . May be there are some better wicketkeeper batsmen than him later on but i saw some clips of his keeping and if u just talk about keeping , he is best wicketkeeper of all eras from all countries.
This is a tremendously enjoyable review of Alan Knott's career. Certainly, the finest wicketkeeper that I have ever seen, as exemplified by the numerous acrobatic catches that are shown in this video. Also, Knotty was a highly accomplished batsman, and seemed to play an innings to meet the occasion. It was a great shame about the way in which Alan was treated by Kent and England as a result of choosing to join the Kerry Packer World Series Cricket. Cricketers were not well paid in that era, so I would make no criticism of Alan for this decision.
Incredible keeper. England were so lucky to have two greats like Knotty and Bob Taylor around at the same time. They were both equally brilliant, but Knott's batting ability made him number one choice. Not only a great of the game, but also one of its great characters. Here's a clip that shows a Knott catch that beggars belief for sheer speed of reaction: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d1BEwh560zE.html
The secret to Alan Knott's batting was that he was always unorthodox. Very difficult to set a field to him when he was playing aggressively. Alan could easily score as quickly as Sir Ian Botham or as slowly as Geoff Boycott - depending on the match situation.
I agree, i was born in 1953 and have watched and loved cricket my whole life, also playing in a local league in Lancashire and Knott is the greatest keeper I have seen and he could score a few runs as well! He would be the keeper in my all-time best team!
Bob Taylor was a great keeper, but I would take Alan Knott over him as a keeper and then you add his batting and it is no contest. Alan Knott is the best keeper in my lifetime.
As a Kent supporter in the 60s and 70s, so many scorecards were full of ........c Knott b Underwood. Knotty was the finest keeper I've ever seen and never has a cricketer earned a more appropriate nickname than D. Underwood than 'Deadly'.
Rodney Marsh, when he was nominating his greatest cricket 11,had no hesitation in saying Alan Knott was basically a shoo in as his wicketkeeper and as a great wicketkeeper himself he should know. In my estimation Alan Knott is comfortably the best I have ever seen in that position in 55 years of watching the sport and he could bat too, against some of the best bowlers the game has ever seen. He often scored at high tempo with impish shots but he could hit the ball hard. There is no doubt in my mind he could be a big hit( pardon the pun) in modern day 20 20 cricket. If you still don't believe me ask Geoffrey Boycott.
one thing about knotty...he was always full of joy and celebration with the game...always a smile...the west indies players always seemed to me to have left their joy in the ashtray in the dressing room....eg clive lloyd...great player/captain for sure...but not a lot of joy visible on the field...
Alan Knott - Legend! The greatest keeper/batsman ever. A far better keeper than Gilchrist, Dhoni, Pant, de Kock, Dujon etc and better batter than Foakes, Russell, Murray, Taylor etc. He would be an automatic choice in any test team.
@@rugbydad678 Bob Taylor was a top class technician who was very neat and tidy. Knotty was probably not as technically accomplished as Taylor but still seemed to conjure some amazing catches and stumpings. I think Knott was he slightly more agile of the 2. Knotty's superior batting was always going to make him number 1 because their keeping abilities were similar. There was a similar argument during the 90s with Alec Stewart and Jack Russell. Stewart was a batsman who kept wicket well. Russell was a qualty keeper who was good enough to score 2 test centuries. The knock against Ben Foakes was always that Buttler, Bairstow and even Sam Billings are better batsmen. Foakes is a better keeper and already has 2 test tons which is the same as Buttler but in around half the matches at a higher average. Billings isn't true test class while Bairstow is a batsman of high quality as we've seen this year. His keeping is better than Billings and Buttler too but not as good as Foakes.
@@andynicholas1728 Thanks for the informative reply Andy. Perhaps Gilchrist is the pinnacle of Batter/Keeper. It's a shame that Taylor was around in the same era at Knott. I believe that Taylor would have walked into any other Test team than.
Alan Knott really was a legend. A superb wicketkeeper and eccentric but effective batsman who made several centuries and over 30 half centuries in his career. I remember watching him on TV in the school summer holidays.
As superb as Bob was, he had great hands and made keeping look ridiculously easy, having studied both men over many years, in person and on TV I can honestly say(also as a pretty good keeper myself) that over all Knotty made slightly fewer mistakes(and Bob made very, very few indeed). On balance there was very little in it but I'd give Knott the edge. As batsmen of course it wasn't a close call as Knotty was on another level.
