Malan digs deep into his resolve

Dawid Malan played an innings that will help England win the Headingley Test match; Dawid Malan played an innings that will hasten the end of his Test career. Like a batting Mobius strip, these are two opposing statements that join in the middle to form some sort of truth.

Malan came into England's Test side almost by stealth, a batting replacement for a spinner, Liam Dawson. A free-flowing left-hander who caught Trevor Bayliss' eye with 78 off 44 and the Man of the Match award on T20 debut in June, Malan looks like a man picked to fit in with England's go-faster-stripes middle order - but that is not how he has played. After scores of 1, 10, 18 and 6, he hit a maiden Test fifty at Edgbaston last week, though it is not enough to quieten the chatter around England's inexperienced top five.

In the first innings of this match, with England in early trouble, Malan's contribution was another tentative single-figure score that ended when he was bowled off an inside edge. Self-abnegation is not his style but Malan seems intent on taking that route, tightening the cilice beneath his thigh pad and wondering if he should apply to join Opus Dei.

Test match batting is often about denying your instincts, packing away a shot here, resisting the bait there. But Malan's movements at the crease have become so tight and restricted that he almost seems to be batting inside a cardboard box.

His first scoring shot of the day is a compact punch down the ground off Shannon Gabriel and he eats dirt when risking a single to mid-off to the same bowler. In the same over, he nearly falls when flicking just above the leap of square leg. West Indies are circling England warily but suddenly they extract Joe Root. Malan's burden seems to about to become unbearable.

When Malan cover drives, the bat swishes out and up in an anti-clockwise arc, like the windscreen wiper on a bus. He doesn't play that shot too often here but it should have been responsible for his downfall. The introduction of Jason Holder, West Indies' least-threatening quick, is met by an almost Pavlovian reflex to finally try and assert himself but, having already been beaten driving at a full ball aimed into the rough outside off stump, he then nicks off.

It is not a particularly surprising mode of dismissal, similar to his flash at Morne Morkel at Old Trafford (though Holder is bowling round the wicket rather than over) and familiar to anyone who has watched much of Malan in county cricket. Familiar to anyone who has ever watched a left-hander flirt injudiciously outside off, in fact.

The edge flies straight and true to first slip and you can picture the windscreen wiper coming back down, this time in the form of an angry flick at the ground. England had lost Root in the previous over - though Shai Hope again juggled West Indies' destiny in his hands - and Malan is the set batsman in a new partnership, England only 43 runs ahead. He might have been out on the previous evening, if only West Indies had reviewed, but this one has an air of finality about it; like Tom Westley, Malan may have just iced himself.

The fates are about to intervene once more, however, in the form of West Indies' Achilles hands. Tom Emmett, the Yorkshire left-armer of the 19th century, used to say: "It's an epidemic, but it's not catching." Nevertheless, those watching at Headingley the past four days ought to be wary of standing too close.

Malan's outside edge is still heading to first slip but here comes the superhero intervention. Unfortunately for West Indies, it comes in the form of their wicketkeeper, Shane Dowrich, who soars across into Kieran Powell's eyeline and then withdraws his gloves with almost exaggeratedly comic timing. Powell has been stuffed, though a man who hadn't already missed a sitter in the first innings might have found the muscle memory to cling on. Malan's bat swipe does not materialise; he is beaten again next ball but the mental retrenching has begun.

Holder settles into a spell that is tighter than Scrooge McDuck's wallet, bowling three of his four maidens to Malan and conceding just six runs in as many overs. Time stretches out as West Indies decline to take the second new ball and Malan inches his way to the interval. Since the drop, he has added nine runs from 51 deliveries.

After lunch, an inside edge squeezed through his legs takes him to fifty for the second time in Tests. He looks drained, a little relieved; but there is more work still to do. With Ben Stokes now intent on taking the game away at the other end, Malan finds his timing to stroke fours off Kemar Roach and Gabriel. At Edgbaston, Malan talked about his ritual of tapping his partner's bat in between overs - Alastair Cook in that instance - and Stokes seems just as happy to indulge. Their partnership is approaching 100 and England are seizing control. Malan begins to breathe a little easier, though still nothing comes easily.

One ball after the drinks break, Stokes picks out long-off. Malan is then cleaned up by the 186th delivery of an innings that he has spent more than four hours mining from the core of his being. He slumps on his bat, barely enough energy left this time to admonish a failure to get forward. England are 143 ahead - exactly 100 on from Malan's reprieve. Their future is still uncertain. And so is Malan's.