After Zak Crawley bagged a pair in the Perth Test, Ben Gardner thrashes out The Great Zak Crawley Debate one more time, ahead of the most consequential matches of his career.
If nothing else, you had to marvel at the irony. Here was Zak Crawley, inked in for this tour for years because of his suitability in Australian conditions, his head-to-head record against Australia’s star quicks and his match-winning capabilities. In the game England had to win, he bagged the first pair by an England batter in Australia since the 1990s, out twice in 11 balls to the one member of the Big Three fit enough to take the field, setting his side on the path to a defeat to rank with their most chastening on these shores. His average in Australia now sits at 20.75, with one fifty in eight innings.
Across the next four Tests, or perhaps even sooner, the Zak Crawley project will be either vindicated or proven folly. It has, up until now, been one of Test cricket’s most extraordinary careers, in which Crawley has, by pretty much any metric, been one of the least effective players to enjoy an extended run in the format. His average sits at 30.96 from 60 Tests, the fourth lowest of any top-six batter to have played as many games. Behind him are Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful, a teenage debutant banned for match-fixing just as he was hitting his peak, and Zimbabwe’s Alistair Campbell and Grant Flower. And yet he retains England’s backing. “We believe he is a quality player,” McCullum said after the first Test. “Particularly in these conditions against this sort of opposition. How many balls did he face? 10 or 11? He got out cheaply, but we believe in Zak.” So let’s have the Great Zak Crawley Debate one more time, if only because, who knows how often we’ll get to do it again?
First, let’s look at the argument that averages don’t do him justice, because the runs he does make really count. “I look at a guy like Zak and his skillset is not to be a consistent cricketer. He's not that type of player,” McCullum said in 2022. “He's put in that situation because he has a game which, when he gets going, he can win matches for England.”
Matchwinning innings are hard to quantify. Crawley’s backers will point to tone-setting cameos, half-centuries to lay the platform for big chases. But a defining innings in victory is hard to find. Of Crawley’s five Test centuries, three have come in draws. His two hundreds in wins came in innings in which at least two other England batters also made centuries. He does win plenty of Tests – the count currently sits at 29, higher than Sunil Gavaskar, Jack Hobbs and Len Hutton – but largely because he plays in a decent team in a results-driven era. Of top-six batters to win 25 or more Tests, his average in wins, of 29.10, is the lowest in history.
Next, that it’s not about the runs, but about how he unlocks those around him. In particular, his partnership with Ben Duckett is often highlighted. One a towering right-hander, the other a diminutive southpaw, they put opening bowlers off simply by the different lines and lengths required to each. Duckett has had an excellent second stint in Test cricket, averaging over 45 since his 2022 recall. Some of that success, the theory goes, is down to Crawley.
Favourable comparisons can be made to Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, the opening pair of the last truly world-class England side. What this misses is that, despite their team’s success, Strauss and Cook shared what is statistically one of Test cricket’s weakest long-standing opening partnerships, Cook only hitting his stride just as Strauss was on the turn. Of opening pairs with 2,000 runs, their average of 40.96 is the third lowest of all time. Crawley and Duckett, with 44.83, are sixth. As a comparison, Duckett and Ollie Pope average 62.50, England’s fifth-best for any pair to have made as many runs.
Still, Duckett, one of those whose opinion matters most, is unequivocal. “There’s no one I prefer batting with than Zak when we’re in full flow and he’s crunching boundaries at the other end.”
Then there’s the final argument, unspoken but crucial: would anyone else do any better? England have tried 19 openers since the retirement of Strauss in 2012, and for all Crawley’s struggles, only Duckett and Joe Root have significantly better records. After those two, Joe Denly’s average is the next best, only just over a run per dismissal better than Crawley. The counter is that, such is the faith England have shown Crawley, they haven’t had the chance to find out if there was a better option out there. When he missed a series against Sri Lanka at the end of 2024, they opted to give Dan Lawrence a go as a makeshift option and he struggled, with a high score of 35 in six innings.
As for dropping him, three opportunities stand out, and here there is, perhaps, some comfort for England. He averaged 23 in the first Bazball summer compared to Alex Lees’ 25, but it was Lees who was dropped. Crawley hit a century in the first innings of the winter, at Rawalpindi. After his returns tailed off for the rest of the winter, Jonny Bairstow’s return from injury, along with Harry Brook’s emergence, presented another conundrum. But it was Ben Foakes dispensed with as Crawley compiled the best stretch of his Test career, England’s leading run-scorer across consecutive five-Test series against Australia and India. Then, at the start of the 2025 summer, having been worked over by Noman Ali and Matt Henry, England flirted with picking Jacob Bethell. While Pope bore the brunt of the speculation, Crawley could have had few complaints if it were he to make way. England stuck with both, and both made centuries against Zimbabwe.
Now another inflexion point approaches, and this could be the last one. Crawley, strikingly, was handed just a one-year central contract by the ECB. Everything rests on this tour, for him as much as anyone. Another lean Test and another defeat will leave Crawley and England with no margin for error. But they also, for the time being, have nowhere else to turn. This is the path they have chosen, and they must see it out. Ashes series are where things end. If Crawley’s Test career is to carry on after, the time to win England a game is at hand.
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