My stats don’t add up . . . but I’m the man for England
SPINNER DAWSON HOPES FOR A WINTER CALL-UP
I turn the ball a lot, so I can do well in the subcontinent
Liam Dawson knows there are plenty of doubters, but he certainly doesn’t lack the confidence to prove them wrong.
On Friday, the Hampshire allrounder is favourite to be picked in the England Test squad for the winter trip to Bangladesh and india. a call-up would be the latest stride in a sprint to the top of the sport which has taken many on the county circuit by surprise.
Until last winter, Dawson was a right-handed batsman who bowled left-arm spin and was rarely spoken about as being an England contender.
He has just 125 first-class victims since his debut for Hampshire in 2007, at a cost of more than 37 runs each. This season, too, his return of 15 wickets at 47 apiece in the red-ball arena has not set pulses racing either.
When placed next to the 2016 records of middlesex’s Ollie Rayner (49 at 20.75), Gareth Batty and Zafar ansari of Surrey (41 at 31.21 and 22 at 30.72) and Somerset’s Jack Leach (52 at 23.98), the argument for Dawson’s inclusion is even more fragile.
But Dawson — who is looking to complete debuts in Twenty 20, ODis and Tests in three months — questions the relevance of statistics.
‘Some people might say i’m not good enough. Some people might look at my stats and say they’re not international standard but my cricket’s on a huge upward curve and i’ve improved each year, and quite quickly as well,’ he tells Sportsmail.
‘it’s probably only in the last three years i’ve actually bowled fully in four-day cricket and played a part with the ball — not just bits and pieces. my bowling is going from strength to strength, my white-ball cricket has gone very well and the more i’m bowling the more confidence i’m getting and the better i’m getting at it.
‘People might look at my stats and say others have so many more wickets but the way my red-ball cricket is going i could play a role if selected.
‘i haven’t played in all the Championship games and the way i’ve bowled i’ve deserved a lot more wickets than i’ve got.
‘We’ve been up against it as a team, bowling in the first innings quite a lot and my job is containing. When wickets spin i’d like to think i come into my own because i do spin the ball.’
ahead of visits to some of the biggest turning tracks in world cricket, Dawson’s confidence is helped by the fact that the 26year- old has received the very public backing of head coach Trevor Bayliss. The aussie picked Dawson for the T20 World Cup in February without seeing him play and has lauded the left-armer’s ‘game sense’. Bayliss’s instincts told him that Dawson has a future with England and the coach has a habit of trusting his gut, even on a tour of the subcontinent.
‘it’s good that the coach says what he says but it’s down to me to put the performances in for Hampshire to get me back into England squads,’ Dawson says of Bayliss’s comments. ‘i’ll work hard and do my best. i feel i can learn quite quickly and if i get that opportunity it would be unbelievable.’
Should that chance arrive next week it will cap a phenomenal rise for the Wiltshire lad who little more than a year ago was second in the pecking order behind Danny Briggs at the ageas Bowl and had to go out on loan to Essex in search of first-team cricket.
‘it’s moved pretty quickly,’ he admits. ‘i was disappointed to have to go on loan but i wanted to play first-team cricket; i wasn’t happy playing second-team. i made my feelings clear and thankfully it paid off massively.’
Dawson had wandered so far into the county wilderness in the immediate years after his 2007 first-class debut that by 2010 he was routinely going back to his boyhood club, Goatacre, to play West of England Premier League cricket on Saturday afternoons.
Dawson had a mixed ODi debut against Pakistan last week. Pummelled for 41 from his first four overs, Dawson returned to claim two wickets in an ultimately unsuccessful cause. again, Bayliss praised his performance.
Dawson was happy, too, saying: ‘i was trying to spin the ball, i kept trying to take wickets — which is what we talk about, and it came off in the end. i kept my nerve quite well. i didn’t back down.’
That fearlessness appeals to the selectors and Dawson enjoys the pressure.
‘The way Eoin morgan captains, he always wants you to look to take wickets,’ he says. ‘my job as a spinner is to spin the ball. i might be going for runs but i’m always trying to spin it. The way whiteball cricket is going it’s tough to be a bowler.’
Dawson has a kindred spirit in the England set-up in the shape of moeen ali, a batsman who bowls spin. ‘moeen has had to learn the hard way in international cricket, especially Test cricket, by bowling in a pressure environment,’ he says. ‘He’s done exceptionally well, he balances the team and i think i can use his experience to help me a lot. Only now am i starting to understand my own game but that comes with age and all cricketers go through that.’
and now he waits for the phone call from chairman of selectors James Whitaker.
‘if i’m selected i’ll obviously be over the moon,’ he says. ‘To potentially go for four or five Test matches would be something that i never thought i’d be doing.’