Crawley slams the quality of county pitches
ZAK CRAWLEY has reignited one of the most contentious debates in English cricket by blaming the quality of county pitches for his lowly first-class batting average of 31.
Crawley gave his Test career a shot in the arm on Sunday by making 77 at the start of the final day in Sydney, which ended with England’s last pair hanging on for a draw. But he said there was no point leaving Kent in search of a better surface because the malaise was ‘a country-wide problem’ that was not helping the Test team.
Going into friday’s fifth and final Ashes Test in Tasmania, England are yet to reach 300 on this trip. in the last 11 months they have been dismissed for fewer than 200 on 13 occasions — including for 68 in the second innings in melbourne.
While some may argue that England should expect little else when they field a top three — Haseeb Hameed, Crawley and Dawid malan — who all possess Test averages in the twenties, Crawley feels the national side are being illserved by the domestic game.
Asked why he was averaging in the low-30s after 116 firstclass innings, he replied: ‘i think it’s the fact i’ve batted on poor pitches my whole Championship career. it’s been hard to open the batting. At my best, i’ve shown something the selectors have enjoyed. So i got picked with an average of 30 but there aren’t too many openers averaging a lot more than that at the moment.
‘The pitches have been very favourable to bowlers my whole career. The average is a little bit lower than i’d like. i think 34-35 is a good average for an opener these days and that’s something that’s very different from 10 years ago.
‘Obviously i’d like the pitch at Canterbury to be a little bit better. i don’t think it’s unfair of me to say. But i don’t think it’s just a Kent thing. i think pretty much all the grounds i’ve played on have been poor. it’s more a country-wide problem and i think it will help our Test team a lot if pitches did start getting better.’
Before the Sydney Test, Crawley — likely to open with Rory Burns in Hobart — had taken to watching replays of his 267 against Pakistan at the
Ageas Bowl in August 2020 in a bid to remind himself he could hack it at the top level.
He averaged 10 from 16 Test innings in 2021, raising concerns that his double-century had been the exception, not the rule. But Crawley said: ‘You tend to learn more from your failures than your successes and it wasn’t the year i wanted. We played some great opposition on some tough pitches, so i wasn’t too hard on myself. i watch that innings when i’m going through bad form because it is a reminder that i’ve done it before and i can do it again.’
most of the England team played golf yesterday, though Chris Woakes opted to have a bowl in a bid to force his way into the side for the second pink-ball Test of the series.
With Ollie Robinson likely to return from a shoulder niggle, probably in place of James Anderson, the inclusion of Woakes may depend on whether spinner Jack Leach is selected.
Australia are waiting to see whether seamer Scott Boland will be fit for Hobart after elbowing himself in the ribs tumbling to the ground after delivering a ball at the SCG. Boland is understood to be mulling over offers to play county cricket next summer, with a view to returning for Australia’s defence of the Ashes in 2023.
UNCAPPED Yorkshire batter Harry Brook has been called in as cover for Sam Billings for the start of England’s T20 tour of the Caribbean. The 22-year-old has been playing for Hobart in the Big Bash.
Essex’s County Championship and Vitality Blast-winning coach Anthony mcGrath will join England’s backroom team as batting coach for the five-match series, which begins on January 22.