After leading England’s victory march in Wednesday’s opening T20 against New Zealand with a half-century Dawid Malan slammed the decision to drop him from the Trent Rockets team after four games of this year’s Hundred as “nonsense”, with it jeopardising a crucial international autumn.
Malan, who turns 36 on Sunday, admitted he had “felt a bit rusty” having “only batted six times since June” as a result of losing his place in the Rockets side. “That was hard to take,” Malan said. “It put me in a pretty bad place because the rest of the year I’d been hitting the ball well and scoring runs everywhere, and suddenly I’m out of form because I’ve had four [bad] innings, which is a load of nonsense as I showed on Wednesday night.”
Two days after what turned out to be his final appearance in the Hundred, Malan was named in England’s squad for both T20 and ODI series against New Zealand, and by extension in the provisional group to travel to the World Cup. “It was definitely a relief,” he said. “Especially having sacrificed so many [franchise] tournaments over the last couple of years to get into this World Cup squad, to get the call was extremely satisfying. I’ve worked really hard to get in that squad. Every opportunity I’ve been given in 50 overs in my last four or five series I’ve gone and had to score the runs, doing it the tough way to get in there.”
Of England players to have made more than three ODI appearances in the last three years, Malan has the best average by a huge margin – he averages 57.3 in 17 innings, with his closest challenger Jonny Bairstow’s 47.9 in 13 at a similar strike rate – and he sits third in the equivalent list in T20s. Yet he does not feel his place in the World Cup squad is completely secure. “It’s a provisional squad and from my understanding it’s up to us to score runs to stay in it,” he said. “I think it would be tough, two weeks before we are flying, to suddenly lose [your] place, but that’s cricket and that’s the way life goes. Nothing is ever guaranteed until you stand on that plane.”
2nd T20, Emirates Old Trafford, 6pm Friday 1 September
England: Jonny Bairstow, Ben Duckett, Dawid Malan, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler (capt, wk), Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Luke Wood, Gus Atkinson.
New Zealand: Finn Allen, Devon Conway, Tim Seifert (wk), Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner, Adam Milne, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee (capt), Lockie Ferguson.
England emerged from Wednesday’s opening fixture with no injury concerns to carry into Friday’s match at Old Trafford. New Zealand’s Devon Conway was hit on the leg by a Brydon Carse delivery and will be assessed before the second game of the series, having not fielded at Chester-le-Street as a precaution.
