Malan better for overseas condition, says Ed Smith

London, Aug. 10: England national selector Ed Smith, who dropped left- handed batsman Dawid Malan from the second Test of the ongoing five- match series against India, has justified his action by saying that the batter’s game is more suited for the overseas conditions.

Smith praised the English batsman for his brilliant Test hundred against Australia in Perth during Ashes series 2017 but underscored that the team is looking for right players in right conditions.

“He ( Malan) showed with that excellent Test hundred at Perth that he can play very well on the international stage. Moving forward we talked about how his strengths could come into play, but in no way did I mean that line as an implicit criticism, he has scored over 10,000 firstclass runs in England and the guy has shown he can play very well on different surfaces,” ESPN cricinfo. com quoted Smith, as saying.

“But in an England shirt, one of the things he has done distinctively is playing very well in very alien conditions so I wanted to reaffirm to him that one of the things we are looking at is having the right players for the right conditions, which is not horses for courses,” he added.

After impressive last year, an Ashes series Malan’s performance in home Test matches was quite a disappointment.

In last eight Tests that he played on home soil, he scored runs with a meagre average of 20.23, with a top score of 65 against West Indies in 2017.

During the opening Test against India at Edgbaston, Malan made scores of 8 and 20 in England’s two innings and dropped three catches at the slip position including a crucial remission of India skipper Virat Kohli.

Malan has appeared in 15 Test matches so far where he has scored 724 runs with an average of 27.85.

— ANI