England arrived in the Caribbean after a sapping World Cup in search of encouragement, glimpses of green shoots in a freshly seeded flowerbed. Within the first hour of the first game that mission had been accomplished as Phil Salt and Will Jacks put together a stand of 77 to continue an impressive start to their international union, which was followed with 50 in the second.
These are early days for England’s new opening partnership – though they also played together for Pretoria Capitals in last year’s SA20, where they were their team’s top two scorers – but Salt already describes Jacks as “probably the best partner I’ve batted with in white-ball cricket”.
Initial signs are certainly encouraging: in four games at the top of the order they have never scored fewer than those 50 runs (or, for that matter, more than 87); of all English pairs who have opened more than two innings only Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen, who had four games together in early 2012, averaged more than their 67.25 while none has scored at anything approaching their 9.84 runs an over (indeed, of those for which there are reliable records, the next best in the history of the format is Sherwin Campbell and Brian Lara, who played four times for West Indies in 1999 and averaged 8.10).
That is largely down to Salt, who has shown much greater early aggression. “I’d say the impetus is on me, facing the first few balls, and from that point onwards it’s all communication, conditions or how a bowler feels on the surface,” Salt said. “We’re both trying to get off to a flyer. I feel like I have different things in my game which mean on wickets [in the Caribbean] I might get off to a flyer a bit quicker, like hitting on the top of the bounce through the off side. Jacksy’s slightly more leg-side than me. It’s good fun batting with him because we have that understanding of each other’s games.
“The pleasing thing is we’ve had four 50-plus partnerships in a row now at the top. Whatever we’re doing is working. We’re yet to go on with it and really bang them to rights outside of the powerplay – when that happens it will be entertaining to watch. The more we play, hopefully it’s about striking that balance between pushing the accelerator and maybe still playing strong shots, but dropping down the gears slightly.”
In 121, or 83%, of England’s last 146 one-day-internationals, dating back to 2015, two of Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Alex Hales and Dawid Malan have opened the batting, helming the team through a golden age of white-ball cricket. In 141 of those games – the four Jacks and Salt have played, plus one in Bangladesh in 2016, the exceptions – at least one of that quartet has opened. So this has felt like the turning of a page, the first time in a sporting generation that any batter from beyond that quartet has been given a chance to establish themselves at the top of the order, to play without feeling like a placeholder.
“That’s definitely been a part of it over the last few years. I feel like it’s changing now,” Salt said. “It’s been tough being in and out, up and down the order, doing so many jobs when you want to give the absolute best account of yourself. At times I’ve felt like I could have done anything and still not got in the team, but I feel like they’ve shown those lads loyalty for so long, and that’s why they got such good results out of them. You see that in any sport, the lads that are backed in generally perform better over a period of time. You have to accept it and take it on the chin and say: ‘My opportunities might come further down the line.’ But that’s arrived now, I suppose.”
England are likely to show loyalty to the team that won the second game and dominated much of the first as they seek to seal the series on Saturday. They were joined at training on the eve of the game by Jofra Archer, who has been in Barbados recovering from the latest setback to his injured elbow, with the squad set to be further refreshed on Friday night by the arrival of Moeen Ali, Tymal Mills, Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes ahead of the Twenty20 series, which starts on Tuesday.
