Bazball’s foundation Crawley

Opener’s success is a byproduct of the team environment Stokes McCullum have created

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THE world of Test cricket has a new Sehwagian figure at the top of the order. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give it up for... Zak Crawley. No, your computer screens aren’t glitching. It may be a bit OTT but allow an explanation.

If Joe Root is Bazball’s lodestar and Ben Stokes the insurance policy, Crawley is the foundation. India have seen Bazball in varying stages of flight in all four innings thus far. The primary reason for that is the start the opening pair of Ben Duckett-Crawley have given the tourists (55 and 45 at Hyderabad followed by 59 and 50 at Visakhapatnam; for comparison, it was 63 and 0, 0 and 17, 2 and 0, and 10 and 10 in the 2021 Tour).

The talent has never been in doubt (you need to be blessed to be able to hit 267 off Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah irrespective of the conditions) but he has added that tiny bit of consistency to his game. In the process, he is in position A1 to claim the title as the ‘most improved red-ball batter’ in world cricket.