Broad approval as new boy Duckett impresses
STUART BROAD last night hailed the performance of Ben Duckett following England’s practice fixture against a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI in Chittagong.
Duckett made a convincing claim to become Alastair Cook’s ninth opening partner in Tests since the retirement of Andrew Strauss four years ago with an aggressive 59 from 63 balls, despite a desperately sluggish outfield at the MA Aziz Stadium.
The 21-year-old outperformed opening partner Haseeb Hameed, with whom he is vying to replace Alex Hales at the top of the order for next week’s first Test against Bangladesh.
The pair lived up to their reputations with Duckett fluent and on the attack and Hameed compact and watchful in his 16 off 56 balls, although the former has an added advantage after starring for England in the one-day series.
Duckett made his international bow eight days ago and accrued two encouraging 50s in three matches, enhancing his reputation after a breakthrough summer with Northamptonshire and England Lions.
He has a new admirer in fast bowler Broad, who said: “He’s a hugely impressive player, I bowled to him in the nets on Friday. He scores in slightly different areas, he’s quite awkward to bowl to and he sticks to his gameplan.
“He’s had such a brilliant breakthrough year both in red-ball and white-ball cricket domestically and he’s been brilliant in Bangladesh so far, so his confidence is very high.
“You could see by the way he was striking the ball, to be hitting fours on this outfield was a good effort. It was very impressive.”
It was a day that was essentially middle practice in match conditions, with team totals utterly inconsequential, after a sodden outfield wiped out Friday’s play.
It was scheduled to be a match where both teams batted for 45 overs – although England, who won the toss and batted first, did not bowl their final six deliveries after Gareth Batty had bagged two wickets in three balls in near darkness.
They were England’s only genuine wickets, however, as the BCB XI racked up 136 for four, with two batsmen retiring, in response to their opponents’ 137 for four, with Duckett the only one to retire out.
England’s spinners – Batty, Zafar Ansari, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali – got through 30 overs without much joy, thanks in part to the run-up at one end of the ground being unsuitable for pace bowling.
Broad, however, was not reading too much into the situation and believes the next couple of days, when England play a two-day warm-up against another BCB XI at the same venue, may be more telling as they build towards the first Test, which gets under way on October 20 at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
After a tough exercise in searing temperatures, Broad, who bowled four overs, said: “I think we got as much out of the conditions as we could. Coming to the ground, we weren’t sure if we were going to start because we’ve had a lot of rain over the past four days.
“It was quite boggy, quite sandy. We went into the game considering bowling 45 overs of spin, not to risk the seamers where it was really wet throughout the run-ups, but the seamers managed to get (a few) overs in each.
“It’s nice to get out in the middle. Like anything it takes a bit of time to build up the match sharpness so the next two days will be very important.
“I found it really hot, the conditions were quite tough to bowl in, especially with the spinner bowling at the other end as your overs come round pretty quickly. It was good to get the match fitness in and it’s all building up quite quickly.”