Zak Crawley’s swagger justifies England’s obsession in wanting the youngster to succeed

Now it was impossible to lip-read what Root said, so no one quite knows what Crawley was nodding his head to, but it is not beyond any stretch of imagination to think that the two were conversing about cricket. In fact, the nature of their conversation gave away the vibe that Root was pointing towards the zillion things Crawley did right in the first session, expressing his admiration for the youngster, who, in turn, taking pride in what he did, looked like he nodded his head to acknowledge the words of his skipper. After all, Crawley marked the end of the first session with an audacious straight drive to bring up his fifty, so there was every reason for Root to have been all praise for the youngster as the duo walked back to the dressing room with England 91/2. 

It took all of one ball on Day 1 to both understand how talented a batsman Zak Crawley is and why England have zeroed-in on the youngster as their next long term project. Walking in to bat at 12/1 with the conditions stacked against him, the Kent man seamlessly dispatched a booming inswinger from the hands of a rampant Shaheen Afridi to the boundary. The odd boundary from the bat of the Kent man is a sight fans have been accustomed to, but on Day 1, however, there was something remotely different about Crawley: there was a presence about him that intimidated the bowling side and he exhibited a swagger that was almost reminiscent of the great Kevin Pietersen. 

Unlike the tons scored by his predecessors, Crawley’s 171* yesterday had everything: there was maturity, there was swagger, there was a period of aggression, there was a period of transition and, remarkably and most importantly, it came under tremendous pressure. Think how perfectly he paced his knock until he got to his ton: first he counter-punched and took 45 runs off his first 50 balls to put Pakistan on the back-foot, then he restrained his aggression when Yasir Shah was wreaking havoc, taking just 16 runs off his next 53 balls, and finally once Buttler got his eye in, he upped the ante and took 40 off his next 68 balls to bring up his ton. It was a 101 (literally) on how to effectively counter-punch under pressure. 

But more than the weight of the runs he scored, it will be the intricacies of Crawley’s knock that will please both the selectors and the management. The youngster, through the course of his 269-ball stay, displayed intelligence and heterogeneity in his batting that, one imagines, would have reassured the people at the top that he could very well be the man for all occasions and all conditions. His problem-solving ability against all three of Abbas, Naseem and Shaheen was exceptional - he put the veteran off by successfully standing a feet in front of the stumps and unsettled the two youngsters by taking them on - but it was how he tackled the spin of Yasir Shah that stood out. 

What Crawley will be hoping for, though, after his stellar display on Day 1, is for people’s apprehension and skepticism over his ability to succeed at the highest level to finally dissipate.  Much is spoken about his first-class record - his batting average is a dismal 30.82 - but after the ton yesterday, that should matter for little. Crawley has, in fact, shown that higher the level, the better his performance gets - he averaged 31 in division 2 in 2018, 34 in division 1 in 2019 and now, in Test cricket, the highest level, he’s averaged 44.09*. What’s also not spoken about enough is that Crawley, in county cricket, at home, batted in a hellhole at Canterbury, where, barring the game against Warwickshire in 2019,  teams since 2018 averaged 184.2 in the first innings. 

But even if this knock of his fails to sway more people into his bandwagon, you get the feeling that with time, he will, in one way or another, through his batting, lure even the doubters towards his side. Crawley will not become a run-machine overnight -  he has a long way to go in Test cricket. But  certainly, he has shown that he has the tools to succeed. The Ballances and the Westleys and the Malans of the past might have left quite the scar on the selectors, but England, for once, can afford to breathe, for they just might have got their assessment right.