England head coach Brendon McCullum says that he won’t be tempted to move Jamie Smith up the batting order despite his remarkable 184 not out in the last Test against India.
Wicketkeeper Smith, 24, scored 184 not out and 88 while batting at number seven in the defeat at Edgbaston in the second Test last week, and has averaged 58.64 in the 12 Tests he has played since making his debut last summer.
And reflecting on his unbeaten 184 – which was both the highest score by an England wicketkeeper and a number seven – McCullum called Smith “world class”, comparing him to Australia legend Adam Gilchrist, who also batted at seven.
"He's just developing at rapid speed, and from our point of view, we're very happy with him at number seven and with the gloves on,” McCullum said.
“When we made the decision to bring Jamie Smith into Test cricket, we were hopeful that he'd be able to have that sort of impact, obviously in the middle, but also being able to have the power that he's got with the tail too.
"You wouldn't have done that [move him] to Gilchrist, so I don't think we should do that to Smith."
Elsewhere, McCullum added that bringing Jacob Bethell into the squad as an all-rounder is “certainly not what we're looking at, at the moment”.
"He's a batting option. He's the next one in if something happens,” said McCullum.
"He wants to keep improving his bowling so that he can obviously impact the game across both the bat and ball. It's not something we'd look at from a tactical point of view to do,” he added.
England are said to be readying changes ahead of the third Test against India, with Jofra Archer expected to make a comeback.
The third Test will be held at Lord’s and takes place between 10 and 14 July.
