Slow death of confused Compton
AS Nick Compton’s top- edged pull off Nuwan Pradeep hung in the air over long leg, forcing Suranga Lakmal to back-pedal, England’s No 3 may have sensed his Test career flash before him.
Compton entered this game admitting his future could soon become his past — a brave confession in a sport that rarely accommodates self- doubt. After his duck at Headingley, he needed a score like Durham CCC needs a bailout: badly and quickly.
Lakmal, though, gathered himself, clung on above his head, then slid tantalisingly singly close to the boundary. ary. Even then, it wasn’t’t clear whether he had d completed the catch. Only when he held one hand aloft after several seconds to signal his success was Compton’s fate sealed.
It was a slow kind off death. And the danger, r, with his Test averageage slipping below 30, is thatat his place in the team is goingi ththe same way.
No- one can doubt Compton’s work ethic, desire to succeed, nor weight of runs — over 10,000 of them in first- class cricket at an average approaching 42. His backto-back Test centuries in New Zealand three years ago were no fluke.
But self-professed anchors — and that is what Compton is — tend not to fall on the pull on the first morning of a Test before they have reached double figures.
Right now, it is as if he is trapped between wanting to bat like Jonathan Trott — a No 3 for whom stickability was nothing less than a calling card — and wanting to bat like the entertainer he senses ‘deep inside me’, as he put it on Wednesday.
The selectors may not be inclined to wait to see which persona emerges. If Compton doesn’t make a score before the end of this threematch series, they may decide that the need to build a team capable of defending the Ashes in 2017-18 takes precedence over giving him time to prove he can hack it.
The elegance with which James Vince made 35 in only his second Test before falling to a sharp catch at short extra cover by Lahiru Thirimanne was a reminder of one ppotential solution shoushould the axe descend. If Vince moves up to No 3, allowing Joe Root to stay in his favoured position at No 4, England could then return the gloves to Jos Buttler, allowing JJonny Bairstow to coconcentrate on exploitinging the best batting form of hhis career at No 5. ButtButtler, who has just returnedtd ffrom the IPL, may not have played a red-ball innings since the Dubai Test in late October. But influential voices in the England dressing-room regard his return to the Test team as the way ahead — not least because Australia would prefer to not have to keep him quiet in 18 months’ time.
Bairstow’s desire to keep the gloves, expressed with increasing irritation, may prove beside the point. That, though, is for the future — and it is one in which Compton intends to play a part.
The second innings here, assuming England bat again, and the third Test at Lord’s are shaping up as defining moments in a career that may yet end in limbo, for ever hanging in the air somewhere over long leg.