Buried in the footnotes of England’s Ashes squad announcement this week was their T20I squad to tour New Zealand, a final audition before the T20 World Cup selection meeting. Wedged in between the usual names – almost as if an error from the copy and paste job for the multi-format players in the Test and white-ball groups had slipped through – was Zak Crawley.
Crawley is uncapped in T20Is and hasn’t played a white-ball game for England for almost two years. He has never previously been named in an England T20I squad, but his performances in The Hundred this summer pushed his case. Crawley scored 280 runs for Northern Superchargers, putting him third on the run-scoring charts, with an impressive strike rate of 160.00. Of the top 10 run-scorers in the men’s competition, only Jordan Cox and Sam Curran – both of whom have also been picked in England’s T20I squad for New Zealand – scored their runs faster.
It’s also notable that Crawley scored those runs for a Northern Superchargers side captained by Harry Brook. Crawley was Northern Superchargers’ first pick in the draft, bought on a £120,000 deal. It was a noticeable punt, the kind of backing which has kept Crawley as a valued member of England’s Test side for so long. Earlier this year, Crawley was dropped by Sunrisers Eastern Cape during the SA20, having scored 88 runs across eight innings in the tournament. Until this year, he had never reached 150 runs in a Hundred season, and in his last full tournament as a player – having been kept out by a finger injury last year – he scored 65 runs across five innings and averaged 13.00.
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But that punt drew a significant reward with Northern Superchargers reaching the knockouts for the first time, with Crawley as their standout batter. His runs in The Hundred also followed a decent few innings in the T20 Blast ahead of the India Test series, including 75* off 43 balls against Hampshire.
Brook: Crawley has the attributes we talk about
Speaking during The Hundred, Brook indicated that Crawley’s domestic T20 form could translate into an England white-ball role. “He [Crawley] obviously has the attributes that we’re talking about,” said Brook. “Putting pressure on the bowlers with their good and bad balls; he can manipulate the field really well; he’s good against fast bowling and he’s good against spin. He’s got all the attributes to play white-ball cricket for England.”
Nevertheless, Crawley wasn’t in any of England’s end-of-summer white-ball squads. Perhaps most surprising given Brook’s clear backing of Crawley’s T20I prospects was his absence from the tour of Ireland, which would have been ripe ground for him to come in amid the rest of their World Cup triallers. Instead, he’s been fast-tracked into the final series England have to nail down what their best XV is for the T20 World Cup.
Salt’s summer blitzes put him firmly back in possession of one opener spot, while Jos Buttler will likely continue as the other in New Zealand. In the first T20I series under Brook, Buttler was preferred at three, allowing Duckett to take over at the top. Now, with Buttler once again having shown the rewards of allowing him to bat as much of the innings as possible against South Africa, Duckett’s role is less clear. There’s also Smith and Will Jacks to weave in around the Bethell-Brook middle order, and whether Tom Banton keeps the No.6 spot or whether a bowling option like Sam Curran or Rehan Ahmed comes into the top six.
All of this leaves little to no room for Crawley to break into, and little time to do it in. He also wasn’t named in their ODI squad, the format he may well be most suited to and in which he has previously captained England, with a 50-over World Cup also on the horizon. He sits in a difficult limbo position, as not quite the next cab off the rank but close enough to not discount his winter away being extended past the Ashes when the T20 World Cup squad is selected. However, from being dropped in the SA20 after a first-baller in January, to being on the fringes of T20 World Cup selection eight months later reflects a speedy rise in his T20 stocks.
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