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[caption id="attachment_20781" align="alignnone" width="580"] Regarded as one of the best wicketkeepers in his time, Jeff Dujon at the Queens Park Oval on Friday. Image Source: Xtra Time[/caption] Debasis Sen, Port of Spain: He is regarded as the man with the crooked fingers. Jeff Dujon kept for the greatest West Indies pace quartets in his prime. He used to go to bed every night with aching fingers. These days, he uses those fingers only to hold the mike when he commentates on the game. On a sunny afternoon at the Queens Park Oval, Xtra Time caught up with the former wicket keeper for an interview. Here are the excerpts: What is your take on modern wicketkeeping? Modern wicketkeeping is something that is focused more on the balance of the team. Now you will rarely see a specialist wicketkeeper as they all have to bat and especially in limited overs cricket, it’s very important to have the balance to have someone who can turn the game around with the bat. How was it keeping to the great pace quartet? Well, it was new experience for me when I started out as I didn’t have the experience of keeping to real fast bowling and so much of it. But over time, I had to learn and adapt my technique and I think I managed to do that quite well. The fastest you kept wickets to? When you get up to this type of speed, these guys used to bowl at, one or two miles don’t make much of a difference. But the fastest I kept wicket would have been was on two occasion when I kept to Patrick Patterson. He was consistently the quickest I kept wickets to. What about Michael Holding? Holding also was very fast but when I came into the team maybe he was past his quickest. But they were in the top pace bracket, they bowled at express pace. Where did you stand to Patterson? Where you stand depends on the pitch, the bounce and pace it has. The speed of the bowler doesn’t really dictate where you stand. It’s the surface. Gavaskar gave you the bat he scored his 30^th ton with, beating Sir Don’s record. Did you request him for it? It was actually quite funny. I was standing up to the wicket. Sunny was batting and just before an interval, when he had already scored his century, I noticed the sound of his bat… it sounded as if it was broken. I told Sunny that it sounded broken. Sunny said he would change it at the interval. It was probably tea time. I just said to him I wouldn’t mind having the bat. He didn’t say anything. When we were going into our respective dressing rooms at the interval, he just turned around and gave the bat to me, saying ‘I would like you to have that.’ I have that bat to this day. Where do you keep this bat? I keep it at a very special place But I can’t tell anyone where I keep it as it has a lot of sentimental value for me Gavaskar has scored tonnes of runs against West Indies. What made him such a fine player of pace bowling? I didn’t play in the 1971 or 1976 series in which he excelled so much. But I heard about him from people and on the radio and the impression that I got was that he was a very special player and he was very focused. The first time I met him when I played against him I could see why. The way he went about doing it…he just didn’t like getting out. Just didn’t like it. The greatest wicketkeeper according to you? It’s really difficult to pick one wicketkeeper out of a bunch of them. In my era, most wicketkeeprs were like me who were batsmen who could also keep, they were mostly ordinary wicketkeepers who could bat. If you have to pick up a great wicketkeeper,  you have to go back to the era before me. Alan Knott was a great technician. Wasim Bari was one, then Syed Kirmani. They were great technicians. As time went by, the quality of wicketkeeping has gone down while they quality of their batting has gone up. How do you assess Saha? Saha has had a good series. He looks very technically sound, especially close to the wickets which most Indian wicketkeepers are. He seems a very good prospect and add to that his batting, it seems he can play for India a long time. Excellent replacement for MS Dhoni. 270 catches and only five stumpings?   It has to do with the amount of time I spent standing up to the wicket which is less than any wicketkeeper in the history of Test cricket (laughs). Five stumpings that I achieved with the amount of time I spent close to the wicket is an achievement because most o the time I was nowhere near the stumps.