The pressure of being Australia's Test wicketkeeper has exceeded Matthew Wade's expectations, but he says if he dwells on his mistakes, it will eat him up.
Wade, about to play a Test at his adopted MCG home ground for the first time, starting on Boxing Day against Sri Lanka, will enter the match under plenty of scrutiny after some recent mistakes.
A missed stumping off Graeme Smith and a dropped catch off Faf du Plessis cost Australia dearly in the drawn Adelaide Test against South Africa.
The gloveman, who turns 25 on Boxing Day, again missed a stumping chance, off Nuwan Kulasekara, in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Hobart.
While there are no suggestions Wade's spot is under question, his predecessor Brad Haddin has been keeping the heat on with strong form at domestic level.
But the seven-Test player said the pressure he felt within himself not to let his country down was greater than from any outside source.
"I'm disappointed. I don't need to read what's printed or what's said in the media to get disappointed or for me to be thinking about my glovework," Wade told reporters at the MCG on Thursday.
"You can't miss chances behind the stumps - it's as simple as that, especially in Test cricket.
"I'm thankful this one (in Hobart) didn't cost us as much as what it did in Adelaide."
Wade blamed his missed opportunities on concentration lapses.
In an interesting insight to the pressure he feels, he said not eating enough during Tests because of his nerves could have contributed.
"Once the moment's gone, you think 'was I there, 100 per cent?'.
"That's the question you keep asking yourself," he said.
But the Tasmanian native said while his errors had come closer together than he would have liked, all keepers let chances slip sometimes and it was counter-productive reviewing his mistakes too heavily.
"If I'm going to dwell on that, it's going to eat me up, so I've got to look forward at ways to improve," he said.
Having played his first three Tests in the West Indies, he said the extra pressure playing at home had struck him this summer.
"It gives me so much more respect for people who have been playing Test match cricket for 10 or 15 years and been doing it day in, day out," Wade said.
"It's an amazing achievement to think Ricky Ponting played 160 Test matches.
"It seems a long way when you've played seven, but I'm sure he didn't think he was going to play 160."
AAP
Tags: sport, cricket, melbourne-3000, vic, australia First posted December 20, 2012 17:19:48
No comments:
Post a Comment