How creeping Crawley has become Bazball's straight man

The initial concept of Zak Crawley was simple.

A languid driver, a devastating puller, sharp reactions to the quick stuff, good interception points for the bouncy stuff. The judgement outside off stump… steady, don't worry about that. Faults against medium pace? Who cares mate. Get him in and let him loose against the best bowlers, particularly when Test matches need to be seized, and lie back and think of England. Tall bloke goes brrrrrr - England win.

Yet, despite being the one constant in the opening partnerships that have launched England's highest successful chases, Crawley has somehow become the straight man. Outscored by Alex Lees (56 to 46) in the 107-run stand that toppled 378 against India in 2022, he "reprised" the subdued role on Tuesday, against India once more, in a stand of 188 that helped topple 371.

Crawley's 65 off 126 balls - his slowest of 22 Test half-centuries - came while Ben Duckett managed 41 more having faced just three extra deliveries. Duckett would eventually finish on 149, earning him the player-of-the-match award and the back page of every British newspaper. Not for the first time, the smaller bloke went brrrr, and England won.

Sensing this one-way love-in, Ben Stokes made a note including Crawley when answering almost every post-match question about Duckett. "The way Zak played was huge," was the England captain's variation of that message to the written press.

Duckett offered similar: "Massive credit to Zak. The way he played… I take my hat off to him." Magnanimous from the bloke who has often done most of the scoring in their increasingly fruitful alliance.

Since coming together for 2022's winter tour of Pakistan, Duckett and Crawley have been England's most productive partnership. Their 2,114 runs in tandem have come at an average of 44.97, and their rate of notching fifty every three stands is the best globally among the 10 opening pairs to have had at least 20 partnerships since Crawley's debut in November 2019.

Interestingly, of their 16 fifty-plus stands, Duckett's runs have come at a strike rate of 92.55, while Crawley has gone at 77.28. It is as much a recognition of the gumption that underpins the former's consistency as the peculiar route the latter takes. Peculiar, because it is an evolution of sorts, even though his overall numbers haven't advanced that much.

Since Brendon McCullum and Stokes took over, Crawley averages 33.41, which remains unspectacular even if it is a five-point improvement on his 21 Tests prior to the 2022 summer. His overall Test average is 31.55, while his first-class figure is similar at 32.20. Even his four-match start to this season with Kent in Division Two reads 31.28. He remains achingly early thirties, like a tote bag with a Substack.

As Crawley says, he "doesn't really think like that" when it comes to worrying about his place during bad patches, which has been a luxury afforded to him throughout by this management group. And while he did finish the 2023 Ashes series and the 2024 tour of India as England's most productive run-scorer, he has not used that freedom to be more daring. Think of this as public funds being misappropriated to fix the potholes, rather than build the big slip-and-slide we were promised in the public square.

"He is definitely thinking about batting differently now," Duckett said, having had a front-row seat to Crawley's move towards conservatism. "He's still smacking the bad ball away, but his thought process is so calm."

The same, Duckett said, had been true in their 231-run stand against Zimbabwe in their previous Test at Trent Bridge, when Crawley's share had been 124 from 171 balls.

"Zak getting a hundred against Zimbabwe, you'd probably guess it was off 75 balls," he added. "But the way he was so determined and ground out a score was huge. Same today."

Crawley, himself, feels in a good spot, particularly when it comes to patience and concentration. "I was glad to hang around with Ducky," he said, a sentiment which also goes against his apparent type, but was absolutely what was required. Said patience allowed him to have a clear-headed approach to Jasprit Bumrah.

"I've faced him a lot now and you know there's a couple of crackers in there and you put it behind you," Crawley said. "A lot of teams have star bowlers who you're eyeing up to take it a little easier against, and Bumrah is certainly one of those. I feel like I kind of know how I want to play against him, but he's a massive threat and a great bowler."

No one has faced Bumrah more often in Tests - 204 deliveries since the start of 2024 - and yet the dismissal at Headingley, caught at first slip at the end of the first over of the match, was only the second time Crawley has fallen to him.

Crawley currently averages 48.50 against a fast bowler who, rightly, is being talked about as one of the greatest of all time. And he is doing so not by trying to hit him off his lengths, or put pressure back on him, but offering the utmost respect.

Has the Crawley story jumped the shark? The one player with a licence to be an island unto himself - freely expressive, expansive strokes, the large adult son of Bazball - is now the sensible one. Negotiating, grinding out, surviving and existing, like every other opener to have played the game.

Some England fans reading that will wonder if they've been hoodwinked all along. Crawley's century-less 2024, with an average of 27.80 across 14 Tests and a list of potential replacements for this summer, already seems a little out of date. The alternative to the original Crawley, an opener with traditional values, is now seemingly this one. You either die Zak Crawley or live long enough to become a different Zak Crawley. This Crawley is coming from inside the house.

None of this has been straightforward. It certainly has not been easy for the man himself.

"I wasn't playing how I wanted to play in the winter and I feel a lot better about my game now," Crawley said, referencing a run of 10 single-figure scores in 19 innings since the end of last summer. That included such a torturous tour of New Zealand, averaging 8.66, that he probably still checks to see if Matt Henry is lurking under his bed. That was followed by an SA20 campaign in which he was dropped from the Sunrisers Eastern Cape side, the worst fate for any overseas signing.

"The leadership of the team don't really talk about these things," he said. "If my place was under pressure, they certainly wouldn't tell me, so it was never explained to me like that.

"I wanted more runs but I was pleased with how I played, and my patience. I knew that was what the team needed at that point. But for me it's all about how I'm playing, and I'm playing a lot better now."

A 1-0 lead in a five-match series, and victory at the first attempt in a 10-match blockbuster against India and Australia, all delivered with a chase to savour. And done so with Crawley, the one player relied upon to push the tempo against the very best teams, playing it slower and steadier than ever before.