ZAK ATTACK AN ALL-TIME IN FULL FLOW FOR CLASSIC INNINGS
ESCAPE: Rizwan’s celebrations on taking this catch were shortlived as the decision to give Jos Buttler out was overturned on review
ZAK CRAWLEY graduated from century-maker to record-breaker on a day when his partner batted more like Boycott than Buttler. While Crawley racked up an astonishing 267 to put England on course for a fourth win of the summer, Jos Buttler collected 152 in his most Test-like innings to date.
Incredibly for a player who has a magical knack of finding a boundary out of nowhere, Buttler went 38 overs at one point without hitting the rope... and it was perfect.
Buttler has made no secret of the difficulties he has faced batting in Test cricket compared to white-ball games, but here he looked every inch the accomplished Test batsman.
He batted with patience, great skill and a calm approach that suggested he enjoyed leaving the ball almost as much as he enjoyed the 13 fours and two sixes he did hit.
Crawley was by far the more aggressive of the two players as they put on 359 for the fifth wicket, a new England record.
It meant that when Stuart
Broad was clean bowled by
Shaheen Shah Afridi, Joe
Root could declare on
583-8 and let his bowlers have an evening dart with the new ball.
And James
Anderson didn’t need a second invitation, picking up both
Pakistani openers inside his first three overs and ending the day with a third wicket to take his career total to 596.
If the opening day had been one to remember for
Crawley, after scoring his first
Test hundred, day two was the stuff of greatness as the 22-year-old joined some of the most elevated company in the history of the game. Some of England’s finest batsmen, from Colin Cowdrey to Alec Stewart to Michael Vaughan to Andrew Strauss, never got the opportunity to raise their bat for a double hundred as Crawley did.
And by doing so in just his eighth match and at such a tender age, he became the third-youngest Englishman to do it behind Sir Len Hutton and David Gower.
Only nine times in the history of English Test cricket has a batsman scored more in an innings than this, meaning Crawley may well have set a mark for himself that he never beats. He sure as heck will have some fun trying in the coming years, though.
When he had made 222, he
PAIR-FECT: Buttler and Crawley’s partnership smashed records
claimed the crown for the highest Test score by a Kent batsman, beating Rob Key’s 221 against the Windies in 2004.
Key has been commentating on this game and has helped the young star with batting advice in his career thus far, but the smile on Crawley’s face on reaching that tally suggests an element of relief that he won’t have to listen to that story anymore.
The way he played should also guarantee him more than the six games Key was given after his double. If anything, Crawley has surely made himself undroppable from the side whenever Ben Stokes returns to the fold. England have found a No3 and they should nurture him.
Jonathan Trott was the last consistently successful man in that spot, and perhaps it is no coincidence that he spent last season as Kent’s batting coach and this summer working with England.
When Crawley resumed on 171, he needed to start again and show the sort of discipline that Trott made his calling card, and for 25 non-scoring balls that is exactly what he did.
Eventually he found the boundary with another crisp flick off his pads and he was away.
At the other end,
Buttler had done much the same, trusting his defence before carving Mohammad Abbas for four to move to 99, when he was then given out caught behind.
The review system saved him and from the next ball he reached his second Test hundred to the delight of his team-mates, who know that the nurturing of Buttler has most definitely paid off.
Pakistan closed on 24-3, a gargantuan 559 behind.