Why Keepers don't open in Tests regularly #euphoriacricket

Wicket-keepers are very essential part of a fielding team they stop byes, take catches do stumpings and help in run-outs. The wicket-keeper of a team also plays the role of an unofficial vice captain. This is because of his fielding position, out of 11 players only a wicket-keeper is always closer to the pitch, they can read bowlers speed, pitch conditions, batter’s movement and can throw in a phrase or two to disrupt the batter’s concentration unless the batter is Virat Kohli then you might want to keep your mouth shut behind the stumps, but all these things help a keeper better understand the game than any other fielder on the ground. Now coming back to the question, why don’t we see wicket-keepers opening in Test Cricket? we have witnessed keepers like Adam Gilchrist, Brendon Mccullum and quinton de kock open the batting in ODIS and T20s but they didn’t open in Test Cricket, now why is that? were they bad at red ball cricket. the answer is no. If you look at their Tests and limited overs stats they are both good. the reason they don’t open in test cricket is that this increases their chances of getting injured. Let us suppose in a normal bowling friendly pitch a wicket-keeper kept wickets for 180 overs out of 400 or 450 overs of a Test Match, that means he kept wickets for 1080 balls and also did 1080 squats and for a batting friendly pitch, keepers might keep wickets for 200-250 overs. so in a normal test match a keeper does 1000-1500 squats, for a series, they might even do 4k-6k squats which is very tiresome even if you are in good health. However, in limited overs format the openers rarely stay till the end, it only happens once in 25-30 matches that an opening pair played half of the overs. so, if you are a keeper you can bat up the order in limited overs format and it won’t affect your game plus a limited overs game has a gap of 2 to 3 days so, you have plenty of time to rest and prepare for the next game. But a test match lasts for 5 days straight. so for a keeper to bat up the order as an opener or at number 3 or number 4 and then keep wickets in the same test match, it can affect their performance as a keeper and as a batter. It can also increase their chances of getting injured because its easier to get injured with extra workload in cricket and unlike other fielders a wicket-keeper is hard to replace which makes keepers even more valuable to the team. Keeper-batter Kumar Sangakkara and Ab de Villiers batted at number 3 or number 4 and sometimes at number 5 in the longest format and they were excellent cricketers but even they couldn’t handle the pressure of wicket-keeping and batting in the top-order, so they gave up wicket-keeping in Tests to focus on their batting. I hope this answers the question, “ Why Wicket-Keepers don’t open in Test Cricket regularly “