The timing may have been purely coincidental but as Keaton Jennings trudged back to the dressing room stairs at Old Trafford on Friday with 17 to his name, and Haseeb Hameed began a net session with the England coaches, it was hard not to ponder whether the pair will be trading places come the first Test with West Indies in a fortnight’s time.
Jennings is the latest in a long line of England openers to find their summer turn into something of a saga and still has one innings remaining in this match at least. But since earning his chance last winter through Hameed’s broken hand and starring on debut with a century in Mumbai, the theme of this first home season has not been one of permanence.
Here in Manchester the 25-year-old left-hander with the sunny disposition appeared to have caught a break. Vernon Philander, whose nibbling style of seam bowling has had his number three times to date, was out of the match with back spasms. South Africa still cut their seamers by one. Joe Root won the toss. A chance was there to be taken.
It was always going to require some fortune against the new ball under early overcast skies, as demonstrated by Alastair Cook playing and missing three times in the first over. And Jennings indeed got a reprieve on four, with Kagiso Rabada failing to hold a diving caught and bowled in the second over that the curiously absent short leg would have gobbled up.
But just when Jennings had started to cut loose a touch with a couple of crunched fours through the covers, the seamer called up by the tourists, Duanne Olivier, gave his best recreation of Philander’s past exploits by teasing an edge from a tentative defensive shot that Quinton de Kock gleefully held off his old school chum.
“He’s found out a lot about himself in these last few Tests, there’s absolutely no doubt,” the England assistant coach, Paul Farbrace, said after stumps. “And there’s areas of his game he would want to work on but there hasn’t been time to perhaps take a step back and address a couple things that would enable him to be more successful in Test cricket.
“He’s a very honest young man who works extremely hard on his game and given the chance to get through this spell he can make a success of international cricket. When you have someone who is honest and driven you want to stick with them.”
But as Jennings departed with a sense of deja vu and an average of 15.57 this series – albeit with a slightly more philosophical outlook than the bat-slamming antics of Dawid Malan witnessed on the stroke of tea – Hameed was just beginning his drills with the England batting coach, Mark Ramprakash, and a small audience of cheery supporters for company.
It is hard to work out how much of a stalking horse Hameed is to Jennings at present, not least with Surrey’s in-form Mark Stoneman having twice come close to selection this summer.
Hameed’s spell taking throw-downs from Ramprakash – one that saw his middle stump pegged back early in the piece and prompted some lighthearted ribbing from the onlookers – was in part due to location but there is little doubt the England management view the 20-year-old as their best long-term bet for a position that has become a five-year revolving door. Was his presence at Old Trafford fair on the incumbent playing for his place? Farbrace replied: “It’s just another opportunity to keep [Hameed] in the fold and make him realise he’s very much part of the future of the England cricket team. We want him to score runs and hopefully push to get back into the team at some point.
“If you’re in the England team there should always be someone knocking on the door for you place. So whether they’re here at the ground or whether they’re doing it in county cricket, they’re there. That’s the idea, you bring people along, you want them to be part of it and if it puts pressure on all well and good.”
Farbrace said the selectors will be keeping an eye on Lancashire’s game against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl from Sunday , as the County Championship briefly pops up its head in the mid-summer Twenty20 block, and a sizeable score for Hameed would be timely for a batsman whose demonstration of talent and character in India was followed by a string of low returns on his return to domestic action.
But it would also see England enter the same perilous territory that handed Gary Ballance a return last season on the back of one century, rather than a string of consistent returns, and expose an otherwise out of form player to international attacks. Hameed is an asset they will be even more wary of damaging.
West Indies, however, may be considered a soft re-entry for Hameed even with the slight element of the unknown that comes with the first Test being a day-night affair. If Jennings bounces back in the second innings – a call to his Durham captain and some-time drinker in the last chance saloon, Paul Collingwood, might be an idea – then it will all become moot.
South Africa may be without Philander this Test but their bowlers, who are one light in number with the extra batsman preferred, put in a shift. Keshav Maharaj may have largely escaped the headlines this series but played a crucial hand for Faf du Plessis by stopping Cook in his tracks for 46 and ending the day with one for a thrifty 54 from his 29 overs.
The Proteas do not have a rich heritage of spin bowlers. Hugh Tayfield is their lead protagonist with 170 wickets in the 1950s, while since readmission only three men – Paul Adams, Paul Harris and Nicky Boje – have ventured into triple-figures. Maharaj, 27, has 41 victims from 11 Tests and the simple, repeatable action that delivers such unwavering accuracy makes him a fair bet to one day top the lot.
