Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

The Guardian - UK

Sport

Ali Martin

Dawid Malan returns to Lord’s with a chance to book Ashes seat

England’s Dawid Malan en route to a watchful 61 from 186 balls at Headingley in the second Test after making 8 in his first knock. Photograph: Visionhaus/Corbis via Getty Images

Dawid Malan never expected to play Test cricket but, despite an inauspicious start in which he was felled by a searing yorker on debut, and the additional scrutiny of playing at the highest level, the Middlesex left-hander is starting to feel more at home in the whites of England.

The third Investec Test against West Indies starting on Thursday should be incentive enough for England’s cricketers, with the series locked at one apiece, but for the greenhorns among them – the opener Mark Stoneman, Tom Westley at No3 and Malan at No5 – a chance to tour Australia this winter is tantalisingly within touching distance, too.

Despite viewing the Ashes as the pinnacle, Malan claims to have put such thoughts to the back of his mind, not least since a struggle to adapt in his first two Tests against South Africa when he was quickly put on his knees by an inswinger from Kagiso Rabada at The Oval and went on to return a top score of just 18 from his first four innings.

That initial dismissal and the TV analysis of a closed-off stance that followed got Malan pondering his technique one match into his Test career and could have scrambled his mind totally. But since resetting his approach against West Indies, two gritty half-centuries have followed and convinced him he can yet thrive.

“If someone had told me at the beginning of the year, or four years ago, that I would play a Test match for England, I would probably have laughed at them,” said Malan, who this week returns to Lord’s, his home ground since joining Middlesex in 2006. “I don’t think I will ever be relaxed walking out there but I think you feel more comfortable. I have played a lot of cricket here and I enjoy batting at Lord’s. Hopefully I can get in, get stuck in and not give it away.”

Though his first-class returns had been consistent over the past four seasons, Malan’s chance came by impressing the England management on his Twenty20 debut in June with 78 from 44 balls against South Africa – a stark contrast to the near five-hour vigil at Headingley last week for a 61 compiled from 64 overs at the crease.

While this was out of character for a player who, by his own admission, looks to score off every ball, Malan describes these ugly runs as a “good sign” looking forward. His Test summer has embraced some safety in numbers too. He made his debut alongside Westley while Stoneman has come into the side since.

Malan said: “Bad as it sounds, the spotlight was on Keaton [Jennings] a bit in the South Africa series and that took the pressure off myself, especially when I didn’t have a good series. It allowed me to slip under the radar a little bit. But, if you don’t score runs, you’re going to be highlighted. No matter what you do, what your technique is, all that matters is if you score runs.”

Malan turned 30 on Sunday and unlike the 25-year-old Jennings knows this is likely to be his one shot at forging a Test career. Mike Hussey, similarly a left-handed middle-order batsman, is perhaps the best modern example of a cricketer to do so in his fourth decade but it is another Australian in Adam Voges who has had the most profound impact on him.

The pair are close team-mates at Middlesex and it was early in the 2015 county season when Voges, aged 35, was called up for what proved to be his first Baggy Green cap, becoming the oldest Test centurion on debut against West Indies in Dominica to start an 18-month, 20-cap surge that he signed off last November with an average of 61.

Malan said: “He thought that every time he missed the boat in Test cricket he gave up a little bit on his homework and did not do his preparation for his games. Before he knew it he was playing for Australia and now [doing the same] something similar has happened to me – I have played four Tests for England.”

Malan views 50-over cricket as his strongest suit at county level but, despite retaining his place in England’s Twenty20 squad to face West Indies at Chester le-Street on 16 September, after the Tests, he missed out on a berth for the five one-day internationals after the selectors opted to go full strength.

While Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali have been rested for the T20, and Mason Crane and Liam Livingstone drop out from the inexperienced squad used earlier in the summer, the one significant change comes in the 50-over squad, where the uncapped Tom Curran replaces a fellow seamer, Mark Wood.

Wood, who was named in Durham’s squad to face Kent in Division Two, is still returning to full fitness after a heel injury. As with Crane, the Hampshire leg-spinner, England’s Ashes plans are likely at play here.