Advertisement

Zak Crawley - the round peg in a square hole who remains as inconsistent as ever

Zak Crawley - AP
Zak Crawley - AP

Two England players have still to blossom under the new Test leadership of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum. One is Jack Leach, who has participated in only one full Test after being concussed at the start of the other. The second is the opening batsman Zak Crawley, who has been as inconsistent as ever.

Crawley has become a one-innings-per-series batsman. When he makes a start and everything clicks he bats superlatively, so long as he lasts: his cover-drive deters swing bowlers from pitching up; his height and reach can turn a length ball into a half-volley; he bats like a combination of Colin Cowdrey and Kevin Pietersen in their prime.

Then there is the rest of the time. In exactly half of his 42 Test innings he has not reached double figures. England’s No 3 is trotting down the pavilion steps after Crawley has reached for a ball that opening batsmen through the ages have studiously ignored but he has been unable to resist, partly as a child of the white-ball age and partly because his height - 6’ 6” - brings a wider range of balls within reach.

You can see how much Eve would have loved to bowl at him in the Garden of Eden. Crawley might have been able to resist the first apple outside offstump. But not two. Eve had only to hang the new apple outside his offstump a couple of times and Crawley would have launched at it, nailing one or two through the covers before slicing one straight to Satan at gully.

In 25 of his 42 innings Crawley has been caught in the arc between wicketkeeper and gully: nine times when attacking, 15 times when defending, and once when attempting to leave the ball. To outside-edge when defending is the occupational hazard of opening batsmen; it is the nine dismissals when attacking which Sir Geoffrey could not abide.

Overall, no England specialist batsman has ever been out caught such a high proportion of times as Crawley at 76 per cent. Chris Woakes, who has been known to give himself width at the crease, is the only England player of 40 Test innings who has been out caught a higher proportion of times.

Crawley is out in a familiar fashion - edging to the slips: this time bowled Kyle Jamieson, caught Tim Southee at Lord's earlier this month - AFP
Crawley is out in a familiar fashion - edging to the slips: this time bowled Kyle Jamieson, caught Tim Southee at Lord's earlier this month - AFP

Crawley, I fear, has been miscast. Given his array of strokes, especially the coruscating cover-drive, he is the ideal man to come in at 150 for three off 60 overs, when England are getting stuck before the second new ball. The man for acceleration in the middle order, like a combination of Cowdrey and Pietersen.

But Crawley is fated to open, because that is where the England vacancies are; and he is rightly keen to get a game, no matter where in the order. As an opener, though, he is a round, and very tall, peg in a square hole, failing most of the time because he is out of position, and on a few occasions succeeding gloriously, to let us know what might have been.

Never in fact has such a tall peg opened the batting in Test cricket regularly and successfully. New Zealand’s Peter Fulton, Two-metre Peter, made a century in each innings against England in Auckland but it was on the postage-stamp of Eden Park; and he never made another. The gigantic opener gives the new-ball bowler too much to aim at, in addition to being liable to temptation further outside offstump than others.

So it might simply be too much for Stokes and McCullum to inculcate: absolute precision in Crawley’s shot-selection. It is not merely a question of confidence in going for his shots, it has to be confidence in his judgment.

For sure, there could be no easier opportunity than this Headingley Test for Crawley to play his one big innings per series: England have secured it already by going 2-0 up and the pitch looks a belter, albeit slowish. And, ludicrous as it sounds and ludicrous as it is, England have another Test next week: after the third Test against New Zealand is scheduled to end on Monday, the delayed Test against India starts on Friday. Crawley has a better chance of success against his current opponents than India’s Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami striving to protect their 2-1 lead.