Malan and Overton latest products of ‘English way’
Pair make long-awaited debuts in Cardiff today Morgan backs established pathway to full team
Five days ago, Eoin Morgan said something that revealed a good deal about the DNA of English cricket. The England captain was reflecting on Pakistan’s Champions Trophy triumph, in which a squad containing three uncapped players had somehow beaten the world.
Could England possibly learn a thing or two? Morgan insisted not.
“I think it sums Pakistan cricket up that they can come from nowhere and still perform,” he said. “They work in a completely different way. I don’t think we operate like that, necessarily.”
For Morgan, the English way is to nurture the familiar rather than to indulge the unknown. “We are culturally used to consistency in selection,” he said. “We can see things coming. I don’t see someone else coming in from elsewhere and making their debut in a tournament. That’s not in the planning at the moment.”
And so to the Twenty20 series against South Africa, which reaches its climax this afternoon in Cardiff. With no global T20 tournament until 2020, England are using this series to blood players for the 2019 World Cup. Three international debuts have already been given; two more will be handed out today, to Middlesex’s Dawid Malan and Somerset’s Craig Overton.
Neither is exactly an unknown quantity. It is almost a decade now since Malan announced himself with a century for Middlesex in the T20 Cup quarterfinal at the Oval. Overton, the older twin brother of his Somerset teammate Jamie, has been around the England set-up for a good few years now.
For talented young English cricketers, this is a familiar narrative arc.
The spectacular initial breakthrough, the swelling balloon of hype, a Performance Programme, a Lions tour, another Lions tour, the inevitable dip in form, an injury setback or two, perhaps another Lions tour just to make sure, and then finally, a few years after first emergence, an England cap.
There are clear advantages to this approach. Forcing youngsters to work for international honours places a high premium on the shirt and smooths the transition from domestic cricket to elite. At Taunton on Friday night, Surrey’s Tom Curran took three wickets on his debut, looking a ready-made England cricketer, and the two years spent on the fringes of the side have been a help rather than a hindrance.
“To be honest, I’ve been quietly confident with where my game’s been for the last couple of months,” he replied
England
(possible) AD Hales JJ Roy DJ Malan *EJG Morgan †JC Buttler SW Billings LA Dawson LE Plunkett C Overton DJ Willey TK Curran when asked about his first taste of international cricket. “I was backing my skills, and knew that when I got my chance, I would be ready.”
But for all their undoubted talent, too often England have looked wooden when the pressure is on. Too often in big games, they lack the ability to feel their way through a situation, to deviate from the script, to rip up the plan.
“I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I disappeared around the park,” Mark Wood said a couple of weeks ago, “as long as I stuck to my plan and executed it.”
As Morgan himself admitted, these are traits that are intrinsic to the culture of English cricket, and even a captain can only do so much to influence them. Keep it simple. Execute your skills. Stick to the plan.
Whether this is the right way or the wrong way is largely a moot point. For better or worse, it is the English way.