Smith to spare Jennings after team support

Opener to earn reprieve for Sri Lanka tour as dressing room convince selector, says Nick Hoult

There was an embarrassed silence when Keaton Jennings walked off after his latest failure for England. Luckily for him, it looks like the selectors will speak up in his defence when they sit down to pick the squad for the Sri Lanka tour, proving that performances will not be the main criteria.

Nobody wants to look a batsman in the eye when he is out not playing a shot like Jennings, but the humiliation was compounded by everyone in the ground knowing how important the innings was for his career.

He is clinging on to the fact he is a good guy, with a great attitude who never causes trouble. He also has in the bank his hundred on debut in Mumbai, which has given him a reputation as a good player of spin, crucial for tours to Sri Lanka and West Indies.

England tour West Indies after Sri Lanka and Jennings went to both countries last year with the Lions. In 18 innings he passed fifty only once, adding to the sense of decline since his Test hundred on debut and another question mark against his reputation of being a good player of spin.

Most importantly, he has Alastair Cook to thank for retiring because the selectors are very reluctant to pick two new openers for the first Test in Galle on Nov 6.

Speaking on Test Match Special, Ed Smith, the national selector, hinted that Jennings will keep his place. “Having spoken to people in the team, it’s obvious Keaton has got a very clear method and it’s just been a difficult summer to open the batting,” he said.

Paul Farbrace, the assistant coach, also offered him support. “I would like to think he has done enough in difficult situations to be opening the batting come the first Test match in Sri Lanka.”

This despite leaving a ball from Mohammed Shami that nipped back and slammed into middle and off stumps, the second time he has been dismissed not playing a shot in three innings after his awful misjudgment to Jasprit Bumrah at the Ageas Bowl.

He has made one hundred and one fifty from 12 Tests, which is a decent run of games for building a career. He was fortunate to survive for this Test match but, when Cook announced he was retiring, 24 hours before the Test squad was confirmed, it saved him.

Speaking in the lead-up to the game, Jennings said being a “happy, positive person” was helping him cope with his poor form, plus the fact every other opener has struggled this summer too thanks to a batch of Dukes balls that have swung in conditions suited for James Anderson.

But this Test has been the worst of the lot, for he has been out misjudging seam and playing a poor shot against spin.

He did the hard work in the first innings, battling away for 75 balls as England put on their highest opening partnership of the series. But then he clipped left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja to leg slip, offering a catch to a close-in fielder, of which there will be many in Sri Lanka.

Penny for the thoughts of Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan. Both have been dropped by England this summer after playing a similar number of Tests to Jennings but have higher averages: Malan and Stoneman 27 to Jennings’s 22.09.

Malan and Stoneman were also left out after dropping catches in the field, mistakes blamed on minds scrambled by the struggle for runs. Jennings, too, has dropped catches. Here at silly point as India put up a tail-end resistance and he was moved out of the slips after drops at Trent Bridge.

It is a shame. So many within the England set-up and around the team are willing him on to success.

Jennings has many of the attributes required of an opener. He does not seem to allow failure to faze him. He has not looked as downcast as some of Cook’s other failed partners.

After his horrible first-innings dismissal in Southampton he played shots against Ravichandran Ashwin and looked to counterattack. He has not blamed anybody else or become tetchy. Perhaps he knows how lucky he has been.

Jennings’s Test average is now 22, the third-lowest of an England opener who has played at least 20 innings.