2 minute read
There you are, point proven. How could you ever have doubted him? Zak Crawley is averaging 124 across his last one innings in Test cricket.
We think the way it works is that Zak Crawley’s hundred is only worth something if it can first be hung off something else. Basically, if England ultimately decide to persist with him for some wholly unrelated reason, only then will this hundred against Zimbabwe be put forward as supporting evidence.
Ben Stokes has sort of already said that Jacob Bethell will return to the Test team for the India series.
“If you’re smart enough, the series that Beth had out in New Zealand, obviously he’s going to be back in the UK for that India series – so, I think you put two and two together, you probably know what’s going to happen.”
Except we don’t. Not exactly. Because unless England get special dispensation to field a XII, then most likely either Crawley or Ollie Pope will have to exit the team to make way for him.
But which? Hopefully this Zimbabwe Test wasn’t pencilled-in as a shoot-out because, rather unhelpfully, both of them have made a hundred. (To be honest, if there’s a weak link in the batting right at this minute, it’s the ageing guy who averages 30-odd who’s still proving his fitness after hamstring surgery.)
Crawley has now been under significant pressure for longer than Oceangate’s Titan submersible. By May 2023, his presence was already a big enough hobby horse for people that his name frequently cropped up in a debate about England dropping their wicketkeeper.
Since then, he’s fuelled both sides of the barbecue by proving himself the greatest inside-edger in world cricket and thrashing 189 in an Ashes Test, before striking a rich vein of consistency against Matt Henry. And now this.
Say what you like, there’s always something to talk about here. You’ll miss the Zak Crawley debate when he’s gone.
Our personal view is perhaps he’s a sacrificial batter whose significant physical differences to Ben Duckett helps the latter get up and running.
The post See, told you Zak Crawley was the very best batter in the whole wide world first appeared on King Cricket.
