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

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

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Crawley struck a flawless 171* on Day 1

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There was a nice little moment between Joe Root and Zak Crawley around 5.30 PM IST on Day 1, when the players were walking back to the pavilion for lunch. Crawley was seen congruently nodding to whatever Root was saying and he did so for about 10-15 seconds without a pause.

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. 

About 100 minutes before Crawley’s straight drive at 5.29 PM IST, though, things were not so smooth for the hosts. Having won the toss and elected to bat first with the skies overcast and rain just around the corner, there was a dreaded feeling that England might have dug their own grave; that their decision might backfire. Shaheen and Abbas were getting the ball to do all sorts, the fielders had their tails up, were chirping, and Sibley looked like he was at the mercy of the moving Dukes cherry.  And then the wicket of Rory Burns in the 5th over increased the suspicion that a top-order implosion was inevitable. But one man single-handedly ensured that England not only evaded a collapse, but got off to their most dominant start all summer.

It was, of course, the man who has sort of divided opinion amongst the masses: Zak Crawley. Heading into this Test, not many knew what to make of Crawley - on one hand, there were people fairly confident that the youngster had shown enough to convince them that he was a long-term prospect worth investing on while on the other, there were a few disgruntled fans using his ordinary first-class record as proof to squash the argument that he would make it big. After his knock on Day 1, though, you imagine everyone is now on the same page - that the selectors have got their assessment spot on; that Zak Crawley is the number three English cricket has craved for. 

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. 

It was the kind of poise and magnetism that had been lacking amongst all of his predecessors over the last decade, one that reaffirmed why England might just have chosen the right man to invest on. For a man who had played all of 7 Tests heading into today’s crucial, series-deciding bout, Crawley displayed the aura of a 60-Test veteran in the form of their life. The newspapers will, obviously, highlight the fact that Crawley scored his maiden Test hundred, but clubbing his knock alongside some of the other tons scored by English batsmen in recent years would be a grave injustice to the masterclass that the 22-year-old put on, on Friday. 

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. 

Not until he got into his 80s did Crawley attempt the sweep - a risky option versus the leg-spinner - and for a vast majority of his innings, he played with the turn and manipulated the field through the off-side, something someone like a Dom Sibley has struggled to do all summer. He was also, on top of being rigid, busy at the crease, which is a quality that has been the facet of the most successful English batsmen across the past 18 months, be it Root, Pope or Stokes. These are encouraging signs indeed for England, ahead of the eight Tests they are scheduled to play in total against India and Sri Lanka within the next six months. 

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. 

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