CONSIDER this an open letter to the Australian cricket selectors.

I'll make it simple guys, because you just don't seem to be getting it.

Ian Healy always reckoned a wicketkeeper was like the drummer in a rock band. They never got the headlines like the vocalist or lead guitarist, they just stayed in the background keeping the beat.

They didn't have to be flash, but if they boom-tished when they should have tish-boomed it wouldn't matter how good the singer was - the whole thing would fall apart.

That being the case, Queensland cricket has got Ringo Starr while you blokes keep picking Pete Best.

Now, as I'm sure you know, Pete Best was the original drummer for The Beatles, a fairly popular group when current chairman of selectors John Inverarity was in the under-16s.

Pete looked great in black leather, the girls loved him and he even had his own van to drive the guys to gigs. Trouble was, he couldn't beat time with a stick. John, Paul and George dumped Pete and got Ringo.

media_camera Bulls wicketkeeper Chris Hartley. Picture: Scott Barbour

Not your classic rock-star looks, but he was solid, dependable and so good at laying down a backbeat he's now worth $300 million and married to a Bond girl.

Which gets us to Queensland's Chris Hartley. Chris isn't worth $300 million, and his wife is a real estate agent, but he's the best wicketkeeper in the country.

Fellas, really? What is Chris Hartley doing in Australia when he should be over in India adding skill, grit and experience to a Test side that is playing like Pete Best's mother?

Of course, not everyone would like to see Hartley heading overseas every couple of months. Take coach Darren Lehmann and Hartley's Queensland teammates, for instance.

In the past 12 months Hartley has been man of the match in the Bulls' Sheffield Shield win, captained Brisbane Heat to the Big Bash title, and on Wednesday pulled off a miraculous catch to help seal a backs-to-the-wall one-day final. On every level Hartley is a better keeper than Matthew Wade and his backup Tim Paine, who for reasons best known to yourselves, you keep choosing ahead of him.

What's that you said, Invers? Statistics don't lie? Sorry mate, in this case they do.

media_camera Chris Hartley celebrates reaching his century in last year's Sheffield Shield final. Picture: David Kapernick

Yes, it's true that current Test custodian Wade and Hartley have comparable first-class stats - the ones you see anyway, like matches, runs, catches taken, byes allowed.

It's the statistics they don't record that have made Hartley such an asset for Queensland the past 10 years, and make him the ideal person to strengthen a wobbly Australian side right now. And I'm not talking about stats like dropped catches here, although I'd back Hartley against most keepers in the world on that one.

The Courier-Mail's Mr Cricket, Ben Dorries, reckons he has seen Hartley put just two down in more than 200 matches in all forms of the game. And I'm not talking about byes NOT allowed either, although he'd rate highly there too. In the 2008-09 Shield final, Victoria batted for 236 overs and scored 806 runs. Hartley didn't let a single bye get past him.

No, I'm talking about things like batting as if your wicket is more valuable that Ringo's first drum kit.

Things like the number of times he has saved Queensland with the bat. Things like being a solid, reassuring and intelligent presence behind the stumps; helping right the ship when things are in danger of unravelling.

Like, say, when Nathan Lyon was bowling straight on a flat deck in Chennai last week and getting smashed all over the park.

It was then that Lyon needed a bit of direction.

He needed someone with the confidence and nous to whisper in his ear, "Mate, there's a moon crater outside the off-stump, land it in there and it'll spin like a Beatles 45."

Hartley is that sort of person, but of course he wasn't in Chennai. He was in Brisbane.

Why? Because the Australian selectors are living in the past. Not back in the Swinging '60s, but back when Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie were creating 10 to 15 chances a match.

When it didn't matter if Adam Gilchrist put one or two down because there would be plenty more to come.

So, with their backing bands singing their praises in the corridors of power, Wade and Paine, the Milli Vanilli of Australian cricket, lip-sync their way around the world.

While Chris Hartley stays at home - churning out hit after hit.

Originally published as Wrong man is keeping for Australia