Zak Crawley determined to nail down elusive number three spot for England

The most compelling story running through The Edge documentary aired on the BBC last week is the journey of Jonathan Trott.

Trott, who is at the Ageas Bowl this week as batting coach, was the last England batsman to make the no 3 position his own with consistent run making over a sustained period of time.

The film, made by Barney Douglas who was the England team’s cameraman at the time, shows how Trott’s world crumbled in Australia nearly seven years ago as his 50th Test was ruined by Mitchell Johnson.

Since then nine others have tried to make the no 3 position their own for England, batting there 11 or more times. Joe Root has played 53 innings and never looked happy averaging 38.66. Gary Ballance appeared to be the new Trott for a while, before falling away as team’s picked apart his technique. England’s no 3s have scored only seven hundreds in 88 Tests since Trott’s world fell apart at the Gabba. By contrast Trott alone made seven at three in 46 games.

The latest to try to emulate him is Zak Crawley, who displaced his Kent team-mate, Joe Denly at three after the first Test of this summer. He missed two games for tactical reasons to accommodate Ben Stokes as a specialist batsman, but Crawley looks set for a run at three now with the Rory Burns-Dom Sibley combination the preferred choice to open. England like the idea of specialist openers in the top three and Crawley showed he has some mettle making 76 against West Indies last month when his place was in doubt.

He has batted in four positions in his six Tests so far, a bit-part player drafted in when others are injured. He averages 30 in county cricket where he struggles against the medium paced swing bowlers who hit the pads. But at Test level England believe he has the technique to succeed against fast bowling, looking more at home against 90mph than 75-80mph when playing for Kent.

This Test match, if it ever restarts, will pose him a good challenge. Mohammad Abbas is the type of bowler who has troubled Crawley at county level but the pace of Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi will suit his game. He is a good player of spin too, and was in prolific form in Sri Lanka before the tour was pulled, so facing Yasir Shah is an opportunity to show what he can do before winter tours to the sub-continent (back to Sri Lanka and India).

A similar cloudy day is forecast for Sunday. There was no play on Saturday due to heavy, thick clouds hanging over the Ageas Bowl preventing the sun from drying out a wet outfield. When it did eventually dry out enough, it was too dark to play.

For Crawley it means more waiting to bat and sitting in his hotel room imagining the ultimate achievement of a hundred, with his highest score so far that 76 on this ground.

“I think about it all the time. I pinch myself thinking about scoring a hundred in my room at night. I massively want to score a hundred for England. I don’t want to put myself under pressure, I feel that could create too much pressure as I get closer. I'm trying to score in little sets of 10. No doubt, the first one is probably the hardest to get so I'm very much looking forward to the day I hopefully can get one.There's a lot of hard work yet,” he said.

“I’d love to score enough runs so my position in the side becomes more stable. I probably need some runs in the next few games to cement it a bit more. Each time I go out I want to score good runs and hopefully in a few games time, or longer down the line, my place in the side will be secure and I’ll play for a while.”

The chance of a result from this game looks slim now with rain forecast for the next two days so the personal performances of individuals like Crawley take on extra meaning.

Batting will be very difficult in these conditions against a bowler as skilled as Abbas, who will be desperate to get hold of the Duke ball and make it talk. Abbas dismissed Crawley for low scores in both championship matches they played against each other in 2018.

“He’s a skilful bowler. He hits the seam a lot and it nips both ways. I wouldn’t say he knows which way it’s going when it's nipping so as batsmen we definitely don’t,” said Crawley. “He’s very accurate, too. He doesn't have loads of pace but he doesn't miss the spot very much.”

Crawley was in the field on Friday night when play was suspended for bad light and he can understand the reason, despite the frustration that ensued.

“You always want the game moving forward, especially when I'd like a bat. But I was at deep square when a couple of balls got hit out and I didn't see them at all really. If someone cops one on the head because they didn't see the ball in the field or a batsman cops one on the arm and misses the rest of the series, that's life changing differences in their career or their lives.”