There was a significant but unremarked landmark reached in the 3rd Test between England and the West Indies at Edgbaston. Although he will recall the match for the unfortunate finger injury that has ruled him out of the forthcoming series against Pakistan, Zak Crawley became the 12th man to open the batting for England in 40 Test matches. It is an elite group which, before Edgbaston, was made up of Herbert Sutcliffe, Len Hutton, Jack Hobbs, Geoffrey Boycott, Alistair Cook, John Edrich, Alec Stewart, Marcus Trescothick, Graham Gooch, Andrew Strauss and Michael Atherton.
It is quite some assembly. Most of the greats of English batting are there and plenty of those who rank as very good.
Three points jump out from the list.
1. The batsmen of an earlier era – Sutcliffe, Hobbs and Hutton – are so far ahead of the rest that this perhaps suggests that times have changed. Sutcliffe scored 4622 runs at 62.4 opening batting in 54 Tests; Hutton 6721 at 56.5 in 76 Tests and Hobbs 5130 at 56.3 in 60 Tests. Batting averages across such a span of time may not be strictly comparable. A tip of the hat here, incidentally, to Dennis Amiss who scored 3276 runs at the top of the order at a striking average of 53.7. Amiss only fails to make this list because of the law of round numbers. He only opened the batting in 39 of his 50 Tests.
2. Among the modern batsmen there is a clear clustering. Geoffrey Boycott is out on his own with 48.16 (8109 runs in 108 Tests) but Alastair Cook, John Edrich, Alec Stewart, Marcus Trescothick and Graham Gooch all average between 45.5 and 43.3 when opening the batting for England. We can, in fact, add Michael Vaughan to that cluster. Though he only opened in 38 tests, Vaughan scored 3039 runs at 45.5 while doing so. In the middle of this range, Cook, Edrich and Stewart have almost identical averages. Longevity at the top of the order is a reward for consistent performance. The other two openers on the list, Strauss (40.9) and Atherton (39.1) are not far behind either. You don’t last for 40 Tests unless you hit that standard and maintain it.
3. There is one glaring exception. Crawley has 2236 runs in 40 Tests opening the batting at an average of 31.5. This is a selection of a wholly different order from the rest. The standard by which Crawley is being judged is remarkably unlike anything that has gone before. This is not a consistently applied reward for persistent good performance. It was, first, a bet on future returns and, then, an acceptance that a long career can be justified by occasional peaks. My point here is not to rehearse the familiar arguments about Crawley’s place in the team but to point out what a historically notable bet this really is. Key, McCullum and Stokes have decided to select according to a principle that has never been adduced before. They are certainly reinventing the game, nobody can deny that.
Interesting stuff - at what point will/do/should they consider the bet on Crawley lost? Because as you note, 40 Tests is a lot.
Being an Englishman in Australia maybe my view of things is skewed but I really feel that all decisions correctly should be being made with a view to winning out here next year. Given that as the goal I just don’t understand the Crawley thing at all, he just won’t succeed out here, maybe at best he’ll have a day out in Adelaide but I don’t see it happening anywhere else, certainly not the Gabba or Perth (even if it’s not the WACA anymore) so what is the point of this
Being consistently 1/12 when your best player (Root) makes way too many tidy 70 odds and not enough grind them into the dirt big hundreds, is not a combination for winning in Australia