Saq
It was the wildest innings ever bowled by an English opening batsman. The record does not go back to the dawn of Test cricket in 1877, but we can be certain that WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Geoffrey Boycott, Alastair Cook and their opening partners never bowled – between them all in their entire careers – as many wild shots as Dan Lawrence did in his 35 run-a-ball innings.
“It was tough to watch at times,” Cook commented on Test Match Special with some emotion. Lawrence’s innings, more than any other aspect of their enthusiastic cricket, epitomised the hyper-aggression England brought to this game, confident of turning their summer into a 6-0 sweep.
Cook had watched Lawrence grow up in Chelmsford since he scored 161 against Surrey at the Oval, aged 17, in his second first-class match. Lawrence became ‘The Kid’ in the Essex team; his enthusiasm, his obsession with the bat, is such that you can understand the uncle feeling among older team-mates. He had no backwoods in Chingford, as the son of the club’s groundsman; cricket is what he knows.
Most observers probably felt the same way as Cook: Lawrence had strayed so far from the norms of opening a Test innings that his manner of play was unforgivable and unprecedented – Lawrence did not just run towards danger, as Brendon McCullum urges his players to do, but threw himself on the pyre. He was even more dashing than Ben Duckett, even more nervous than Ollie Pope at the start of an innings away from the Oval.
We must, however, rationalise this most insane of innings until the truth comes out after this match. We might suppose that: first, Lawrence was told before this match, or even this series, that he was guaranteed a place in England’s squad for the Test match against Pakistan next month, but he managed to play as an emergency fly-half in place of Zak Crawley. Second, this regime will deliver on that promise. Third, Lawrence may never again be asked to open an innings in an England Test match, but he will once again become the first replacement in midfield in the event of injury or illness in Pakistan.
Running down the pitch to his first ball, with England leading 62-2 in the first innings, Lawrence was interpreting his instruction to put pressure on the Sri Lankan bowlers in his own way. The ball swung more on the third day than on the previous two days, even though it was the sunniest, and so the Sri Lankan bowlers were going to bowl a longer length; the best way to counter this swing was to come down the pitch and take lbw out of the equation. Note what was to happen when the left-handed Vishwa Fernando pinned Joe Root and Harry Brook leg-before: they let him bowl a full length and paid the price.
A succession of high-risk shots followed. Lawrence ran down the pitch to throw himself over cover. He held back for four balls after Duckett gave an easy catch at mid-on, then resumed the high-risk strike, or slogging. Pope was also out in the first eight overs, but the old school of leaving the new ball, or giving the bowler first time, or a few quick singles to build a partnership, did not seem worth considering. It was the terrestrial equivalent of wild swimming: wild batting.
What was undeniably illogical was that when Lawrence stepped onto the pitch he appeared to be hitting leg side rather than off-side – and the fact that the new ball was heading away from his bat made these wild shots even riskier. But his strength had always been his low-handed leg-striking; his attempts to bat like a traditional Test opener had only resulted in 85 runs in five innings as Crawley’s replacement.
By heading towards the offside, towards a straight ball that sailed just over his stumps, he could have set a new national record – that of the wildest shot ever made by an English opener, according to the conventional wisdom. Learn from the experience and slow down, or take advantage of the chance and keep going? Lawrence’s response was to give himself a slightly better chance by hitting six balls over long-on and four through the covers, without a leg-hick, but that was his only compromise.
There was one important point to be made against Lawrence playing the way he did: by throwing the bat early in their innings, England gave their fast bowlers just 34 overs to recover. Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson, had they been electric vehicles, would have suffered from range anxiety in their third successive Test, while Josh Hull had pushed his young body to the limit in the morning.
But what was the point of Lawrence playing like his illustrious predecessors and trying to be something he was not? England were six wickets down in the 18th over, and could well have been in trouble no matter how Lawrence had bowled. To have him open in this series, as a reward for doing the job of 12th man for a few years, was to put a square peg in a round hole. But it must be said that the peg played as he saw fit, in the context of the culture that prevails today.
Saq
