Stephen Fay: Confident Prior shows few fears on facing second examination

Matthew Prior passed his first test as England's wicketkeeper summa cum laude by scoring a fast and savage hundred. Yesterday he sat, or rather crouched, for the second stage of his examination - behind the stumps.

He had said the night before, with the modest understatement required of a professional cricketer, that "it would be nice to have a good day with the gloves". First impressions? He did not have an especially memorable start, but he did not have a bad day either: no catches or stumpings offered, but no byes conceded either.

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Prior is 5ft 11in, no taller than many of his contemporaries behind the stumps, but bigger than the classical tradition of compact, wiry men with short legs. Keeping to the fast bowlers, he readies himself by placing his hands on his thighs before bringing the gloves together in front of him. Only when the spinner is bowling does he go into a full crouch with his gloves touching the ground.

He takes balls down the off side efficiently, stepping lightly towards the slips, to whom he quickly offloads the ball. His height is no deterrent when deliveries are fired down the leg side. In his second over after lunch Stephen Harmison bowled three deliveries wide of leg stump, and Prior dived full out to stop each one. It was like an exhibition of leg-side keeping generously donated by Harmison to make his new colleague look good.

One of Liam Plunkett's wilder deliveries outside off stump escaped him, and he could not hold on to a couple of Monty Panesar's steeply rising balls, but this was a competent performance by a wicketkeeper who did not come to Lord's with a good reputation. Playing for Sussex against MCC early in the season the balls had bounced out of his gloves often enough for him to earn the title of "iron gloves". Yesterday, the iron had been left behind in his coffin.

Prior is not an elegant wicketkeeper like Bob Taylor, or a stylist like Godfrey Evans, or a neat keeper like Jack Russell. But we knew that. What Prior could hardly have hoped for was a batting debut that outshone all of England's great wicketkeeper/batsmen. "For an English cricketer it could not get better than this," he said on Friday.

The statistics bear that out. Les Ames, who kept throughout the 1930s, started with a duck against South Africa in 1929; Alan Knott, the dominant figure in the 1970s, also got a duck, in 1967 against Pakistan. Alec Stewart, in his debut as wicketkeeper scored 11 and 9 against Australia in 1991. The only one of the predecessors who come close to Prior's 126 not out was Jack Russell, who scored 94 against Sri Lanka in 1988.

Prior is 25; born in Johannesburg, he studied at Brighton College and the County Ground at Hove, where he made his mark as an adolescent, playing for England youth teams. He wears a stud in his ear, and has a shaven head, to conceal the awkward fact of the loss of most of his hair in his mid-twenties.

But an English education has not eradicated a will to win whose nakedness is more South African than English. "Sport is selfish. It's you or him," he says. "You have to be ruthless. You have to hold them down as long as possible until they give in."

He was shocked to be dropped from the England A squad a year ago. "I went through a tough time, but you dust yourself down and work harder", he said. He already had a mentor. Prior is a client of Alec Stewart, who became his manager and agent three years ago. Stewart provides reassurance on the phone to dispel anxiety - about technical details such as his gloves, for example. "Alex's been fantastic, to be honest," says Prior. His confidence has grown back: "You get out there and think, 'I can do this'," he says

Even after Geraint Jones and Chris Read had been removed from the shortlist of England wicketkeepers, there was plenty of competition for the England job. Paul Nixon had pole position. In the counties, James Foster (Essex) Jon Batty (Surrey) and Steve Davies (Worcestershire) had strong claims, and the accomplished Greek/South African Nic Pothas of Hampshire is about to qualify for England.

In such a congested field, a man needs some luck, and Peter Moores is Prior's lucky charm. The new England manager knows Prior of old and would have backed him strongly in his role as a selector. At Lord's, Prior has amply repaid Moores' faith in him.

His own new faith in himself has been repaid too. "I was really pleased by the way I handled my thoughts last week. I spent two days working out how I wanted to come into the match, and, come the day, I was only as nervous as I would be for Sussex. I enjoyed it really."