On the eve of this Fourth Test, Ben Stokes offered a succinct reminder of England’s selection policy: “We pick teams and players for what they can do on their best days.” Yesterday, without doubt, was Zak Crawley’s finest yet.
True, there was the double-hundred against Pakistan three summers ago, increasingly used to mock the opener as much as make his case, a score of 267 doing more to raise his average than Sir Ian McKellen would the mean age of the England midfield. But that innings came in front of no crowd at the Ageas Bowl and in a contest that holds no flame to a must-win Ashes duel.
Crawley’s domineering innings here put the world’s best team so far onto the back foot that it threatened to buckle under the weight, a demolition job not of slog sweeps or carved sixes (though there were one each of those), but of glorious drives that saw the likes of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, modern greats, dispatched off the pads, through the covers and down the ground time and again.
True, there were some less glorious ones, too, that made no contact outside off, and several that skidded off the bottom or inside edge, past the stumps and Alex Carey to the fence. But that is cricket: go back to Crawley’s innings at Headingley and count the number of times fine shots are middled straight to a fielder for no run. Some days are just your days.
“I’m a big believer in luck,” Crawley said. “If I get a bit of luck I just go, ‘That’s my bit of luck for the day’. I don’t feel like I’ve got away with one.”
An innings of 189 lasted just 182 balls, included more than 100 runs in a single session between lunch and tea and led the way in a brutal partnership of 200 with Joe Root brought up at the fastest rate in the history of Test cricket.
In short, this was the kind of performance Crawley had been promising — or at least Stokes and Brendon McCullum promised he was promising — the kind that England have been banking on arriving in a fashion as timely as this from a player they consider a match-winner, rather than consistent run-maker.
And they have had to be patient. In 26 Tests between that Pakistan epic and the start of this series, Crawley averaged just 23. Last summer was particularly lean, the Kent man making seven single-figure scores in as many matches and not passing 50 until the final innings of the final Test.
The paradox, though, is that this time around Crawley was already quietly proving his worth, declaring himself a little more than the boom or bust cricketer many thought by delivering four positive starts in six innings across the first three Ashes Tests, one of only two outright failures coming in the series’ worst batting conditions to date as a storm closed in on Edgbaston.
Asked for one-word descriptions of his team-mates coming into this series, Stokes had given Crawley “argumentative”, but it has been notable that while the rest of us have been bickering over who bats at three, who keeps wicket and whether spin has to play a part, the debate that raged loudest through the winter — that over Crawley’s place in the team — had quieted almost entirely even before yesterday’s hurrah.
Crawley’s domineering innings here put the world’s best team so far onto the back foot that it threatened to buckle under the weight
Perhaps there has been something else at play, too. Sky Sports’ viewing figures will attest that more people than ever are not merely keeping an eye on this series, but living it, watching social media clips and highlights packages, yes, but also entire sessions and days. Gripped by ball after ball, peoples’ emotions are invested not simply in the end result, but in riding out every twist and turn.
As such, the small victories of channelling momentum and providing impetus, those that do not show up on a scorecard but are internally hailed, are being experienced by all and, in matches as tight as these have been, feel every bit as pivotal as Stokes and McCullum have always claimed.
Even so, this from Crawley was something more, something concrete that may yet prove the innings that swung the Ashes England’s way.
