Lorcan Tucker's energy overload

Day one, Lord's. Ireland's batting was tripping over itself, yet one man attacked like he thought he was still wearing the greens.

Lorcan Tucker hopped around the crease more than a coked-up Kangaroo. He was coming down the wicket and trying to smash Broad back over his head. Misses it. And at that point, you think, how is this guy going to ever be a proper batter that Ireland want him too. His shot was needless and also not executed well. He doesn't get near the length, the bat turns in his hand, and it would have been ugly even if he'd hit it. 

Lorcan Tucker has hyperactive keeping disorder. 

Before the move to specialist batters who keep a little, we had keepers who could bat a tiny bit. Guys like Jeffrey Dujon, Kiran More, Junior Murray, Moin Khan, Farokh Engineer, Mark Boucher, Ian Healy, Ian Smith, and Rodney Marsh. They were either mouthy, or high energy, sometimes both. But not quite good enough to ever be a specialist batter. But they still all made runs. But a flaw always stopped them from being regular top-six batters.

They still exist in cricket, Niroshan Dickwella is a direct link to those kinds of players, and Safaraz Ahmed was perhaps that player in Excelsis. He was good enough to average 40 in Tests, and at least bat higher without too much of a drop. But these kinds of players mostly top out around low to mid-30 averages, and many never get much more than 25. But their innings have impact and often give energy to lifeless situations. They're number sevens with attitude. 

I mention all this because I thought this was Lorcan Tucker's best-case scenario. And part of the reason is because when he started with Ireland he batted at number eight. Because so many keepers now start batting up the order, when I see someone down the list, I just assume that means they can't bat.