England opener shows the character to resurrect Test career Career

Jennings headed out to Sri Lanka knowing it was his final chance, says Nick Hoult in Galle

Keaton Jennings will never be the most attractive batsman to watch but what he lacks in aesthetic beauty at the crease he makes up for in character and resolve. He arrived in Sri Lanka knowing he was on his last chance, with an average of 22 from 12 Tests and barely a run since his debut hundred. The selectors stuck by him because of a lack of alternatives and the belief he could play spin. That faith had been stretched almost to breaking point by his poor performances last summer when his problems with the swinging ball were exposed again, twice getting out not playing a shot, and then compounded by a lame dismissal against spin in the final Test against India at the Oval when he had done the hard work against the new ball.

If Alastair Cook had reversed his retirement, Jennings would not be here, so he had to score runs on the slow pitches of Sri Lanka, and prove national selector Ed Smith right, otherwise he would join a long list of discarded openers.

Jennings says he has learned to become thicker-skinned and a “better person” for enduring the stresses of struggling to establish a Test career. But his temperament has never been in doubt. England have seen plenty of young (and a few older) batsmen stew themselves into a mess after a string of failures, but throughout last summer they were keen to point out that Jennings had remained level despite his problems.

Such calmness helps a player fall back on his strengths and not try something different in desperation. In this innings, Jennings stuck to what he knows best. He relied on the sweep, his “get-out-of-jail shot”, scoring 23 per cent of his runs that way. He played straighter to shorter balls, punching off the back foot through the off side, learning from his first-innings mistake when he cut and was bowled by the offspinner coming around the wicket. He hit only seven fours in reaching his century, the same as in his frenetic first innings of 46, determined this time not to fluff his chance.

He showed admirable physical endurance in this humidity, too, scoring 82 of his 146 in singles and, ever the team man, sprinted three leg byes on 99 before the ball rolled over the rope for four. It fooled the Barmy Army, who rose for a standing ovation thinking he had a century, but they did not have to wait long.

“The relief is something I can’t really explain,” he said. “Over the last 18 months, I have faced some things in my cricketing life I have had to learn from. I have had to develop myself. It is just really pleasing and a big thank you to the people who have stuck with me, helped me and backed me through some tough times, waking up in the night and stressing.”

Jennings defies stereotype as a South African player adept against spin and weak against seam. It is also unusual for a batsman brought up on Durham greentops to be such an accomplished player of slower bowling, a skill he learned on a 2016 Lions tour to Dubai working with Andy Flower and Graham Thorpe, two of their generation’s finest players against spin.

He now averages 70.40 against spin, as opposed to 18 against seam, and with English cricket always pointing one eye at the Ashes, that is a worrying imbalance that he has to rectify next summer.

“I’m the kind of bloke who wants to get better and perform. I want to try and do well,” he said. “You feel the pinch from the media point of view but I try to isolate myself from it. The doubt is created and you even wake up doubting what coffee you are having in the morning. You wonder where the pressure is coming from and you realise it is lack of runs.

“It would be silly to say there will not be that much pressure again. It is a process of understanding. I am not fully developed.”

Hundreds by England openers are rare these days and to be treasured. England tried 12 openers after Andrew Strauss and Jennings is only the second to make two Test hundreds. There are five more Tests this winter on slow pitches, so he has plenty of opportunity to extend that record. This could be his winter.