Dan Lawrence

Dan Lawrence, a wristy, idiosyncratic talent, was tipped for higher honours almost from the moment he burst into Essex's senior ranks as a teenager. He fulfilled that promise when handed an England Test debut in Sri Lanka at the start of 2021, making a half-century in the first innings in Galle, but despite impressing in fits and starts was left to bide his time in the search for a regular spot in the XI.

A product of Chingford CC, Lawrence had been regarded as one of the most promising young batters in the country since the day he became the third-youngest to make a Championship century, striking 161 for Essex against Surrey at The Oval in April 2015 at the age of 17 years and 290 days. It was only his second first-class game, but his chanceless century, part of Essex's 600-plus score on a placid surface, brimmed with panache and self-assurance. In doing so he compiled records - and lots of them: youngest Essex first-class centurion, youngest centurion at The Oval, and outdone only by Godfrey Bryan and Dipak Patel in the Championship.

That exciting introduction presented him with quite a reputation to uphold in 2016, but he acquitted himself well, striking three more Championship hundreds in Essex's promotion year, and identifying himself as an enthusiastic hunter of leg-side boundaries. There was promise, too, in his T20 form, where his spin bowling was also praised by head coach Chris Silverwood as Essex's "secret weapon".

Further progress followed in 2017. Lawrence was named as Young Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Writers' Club after his 761 runs at 44.76, including three hundreds, helped newly promoted Essex win the Championship for the first time in 25 years. The first of them, a match-saving affair in early season against Lancashire, first signalled that Essex could hold their own in Division One: by going on to lift the title, they certainly proved that. He also made his England Lions debut and was selected for a Lions training camp in Australia.

While his first-class returns were not quite so formidable over the next couple of campaigns, he developed his game in the limited-overs formats, hitting a maiden List A hundred in 2018 and playing a significant role in Essex's T20 Blast success the following summer. There was also another Championship winners' medal for the cabinet, and Lawrence's star continued to rise when he was named as one of the 'local icons' for London Spirit in the inaugural Hundred draft in October 2019.

That winter, a century at the MCG in a pink-ball game against Australia A helped secure a rare Lions win Down Under, and elevated him into England's thinking during the Covid-affected summer of 2020. With Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope and Rory Burns all absent, Lawrence won his first call-up for the tours of Sri Lanka and India, playing in five out of six Tests on the subcontinent, but he lost his place soon after. He returned in the Caribbean, following England's 4-0 Ashes defeat, making a career-best 91 in Barbados, but injury and a dip in form meant he missed out on the "Bazball" revolution under Stokes and Brendon McCullum.
ESPNcricinfo staff