From being a team with too many wicketkeepers to call upon, England have all of a sudden found themselves in something of a crisis.

With Jos Buttler rested and Ben Foakes suffering a freak injury, there is currently only one player available to have kept wicket in a Test match – Ollie Pope, in a high-scoring draw in New Zealand. It looks set to be James Bracey who will win a Test debut in the first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s, while Sam Billings has been called up as cover.

Billings is fast becoming a force in white-ball cricket, and has been tipped as a Test gloveman in the relatively recent past. But if you thought his lack of recent first-class game time – since the start of the 2019 county season, Billings has appeared just seven times in first class cricket – spoke of a paucity of capable glovemen in the shires, you would be mistaken.

The wicketkeeping titans

Steve Davies

13,677 runs @ 38.52, 25 100s

An England white-ball international at the turn of the last decade, and a reasonably successful one at that, Steven Davies has since churned out the runs in county cricket, all while remaining one of the game’s most assured glovemen. While returns with the bat have slightly faltered recently – between 2008 and 2016, he averaged 39 or more in all but one English season, and has done so only once since – an 87 in the West Country derby, rescuing Somerset from 80-4, shows he’s still capable.

Ben Brown

7,882 runs @ 38.63, 18 100s

The last two campaigns haven’t been prolific for Sussex’s Ben Brown, with an average of 25.21 since the start of 2020, but before then Ben Brown earned a record as county cricket’s most consistent uncapped glovemen – he averaged 42.85 across a seven-year period leading into 2020.

John Simpson

7,180 runs @ 31.49 runs, 7 100s

One of several stars of Middlesex’s 2016 County Championship win, John Simpson is a keeper who likes a scrap, as evidence by a half-century in the London derby, rescuing the Seaxes from 27-4. While his batting numbers aren’t quite up there with Davies and Brown, Simpson is one who comes near the top whenever a conversation about who the best pure gloveman in the English game is.

The purists’ favourite

Ben Cox

4,947 runs @ 27.79 runs, 4 100s

A hipster’s choice to make even Ben Foakes look like Kings Of Leon, those in the know suggest Ben Cox might just pip the Surrey man, from a technical glovework point of view. The most famous example came in the 2019 T20 Blast semi-final, when Wayne Parnell, properly quick on his day, was defending two off the last ball to Ben Duckett. Cox came up to the stumps, Duckett missed, and Cox didn’t.

The up-and-comers

Tom Moores

1,629 runs @ 22.94, 2 100s

Tom ‘son of Peter’ Moores might not yet have the batting record to make England properly take note, but Lions recognition shows he’s highly thought of, and his returns this season – he averages 42.83 so far – suggest he could be ready to make the step up. If nothing else, he looks like a worthy successor to Chris Read at Nottinghamshire.

Ollie Robinson

1,397 runs @ 31.04, 2 100s

The Kent wicketkeeper is only slightly less hotly tipped than the Sussex seamer, and at 22 years old is the youngest player on this list. Like Moores, he has been included in a Lions squad without yet playing for the second string side, and like Moores, the signs are he could be embarking on the best season of his career so far.

Alex Davies

4,431 runs @ 36.02, 5 100s

Of this trio, Alex Davies stretches the definitions of up-and-coming – he’s 26 and has over 4,000 first-class runs – and wicketkeeper, with Dane Vilas Lancashire’s first-choice. However, Davies is more than capable, and as a positive opener with a solid record, could yet be in the reckoning as a specialist bat.

Harvey Hosein

2,540 runs @ 32.98, 2 100s

Perhaps the least well-known name in this list, Derbyshire’s Harvey Hosein has already set records in his short career so far. On his debut, against Surrey, he claimed 11 catches, a record for a Derbyshire keeper. He was a breakout star of the Bob Willis Trophy, effecting a stumping standing back against Leicestershire, and made a brilliant 84 in Derbyshire’s final game. With a single bonus point vital, he dragged his side from 61-7 to 178-8, before his dismissal saw them fall five runs short of a vital extra.

The rest

All of Adam Wheater, Adam Rossington, Chris Cooke and Jonny Tattersall average low to mid 30s with the bat, while Ricardo Vasconcelos has been one of the standout batsmen this season, albeit he’s only a part-time gloveman. Harry Swindells is green, but made a special maiden hundred against Surrey, and then there’s Tom Banton, another part-timer but one of the most exciting young white-ball batsmen in the world.