Nasser Hussain, Mark Butcher and Simon Doull join Ian Ward on the latest Sky Cricket Podcast to preview the three-match series between England and New Zealand. watch Lord’s First Test live on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event from 10am Thursday
Zak Crawley faces “two or three big games” as England’s opener, says Nasser Hussain, as the team take on New Zealand in the first of three test matches at Lord’s on Thursday.
England have won just one and lost 11 of their last 17 Tests, a run that led to the departure of managing director Ashley Giles and head coach Chris Silverwood following a 4-0 thrashing of the Ashes.
Rob Key has since been appointed as Giles’ successor, with Brendon McCullum chosen to lead the trial team alongside new captain Ben Stokes after Joe Root resigned from the role in April.
speaking in the Sky Cricket podcastformer England captain Hussain said the first box the new regime needs to tick is fixing England’s top-level batting problems.
“You can’t keep going 50-5 or 20-2 and Joe Root keeps walking into the middle,” Hussain said. “You’re not winning a lot of Test matches from that position.
“It’s interesting to hear McCullum say he’s not going to be a coach, because I think that’s a problem with some of those higher-ups: Zak Crawley is a good example, a very talented young man but with a little technical problem.
“It’s not easy, especially in England with the ball moving, but that’s your job as an opening batsman or in the top three, to go out there and see the new ball.”
Crawley scored a superb 267 against Pakistan two years ago, while showing further evidence of his undoubted talent with a hundred in the first Test of the most recent tour of the West Indies.
Despite those two shots, Crawley is averaging just 28.60 in his 21 trials and Kent’s Ben Compton provides competition, averaging over 100 this season as the leading run scorer in the County Championship, among others.
“That’s two massive games for Zak Crawley,” Hussain added. “Because I see Compton getting another hundred against the New Zealand tour team, he’s getting races for fun.
“Sam Robson [at Middlesex] he’s back and he’s done very well in recent years, there’s also Tom Haines lad in Sussex [both averaging over 50 in 2022] – Rob Key has talked about him – so there are two or three starting hitters who are pushing for the pick.
“There’s a big couple of games to go for those first two England games.”
Adding to the debate, former England batsman Mark Butcher believes Crawley would be better suited to bat at No. 3, the position in which he played 45 of his 71 Tests.
Instead, Ollie Pope will bat at No. 3 at Lord’s, never before for Surrey and despite his own battle for form at Test level after being left out of the squad at West Indies.
“I thought if Crawley was going to play, number three is a better place for him than opening, it’s just a feeling I have,” Butcher said.
“He’s kind of on the edge of a cliff right now, because people are running out of patience, failures have come in plenty and fast, and yet we can all see that if he works it out, you’ve got a guy who has a tremendous amount of talent and a tremendous amount to offer.
“That’s something McCullum will test his wits against, that’s where he’ll add a tremendous amount of value to this England team. Make the boys believe in themselves and play the best they can.”
Butcher added of Pope: “Going back to the South African tour [in 2019/20] – just before Covid – where England won 3-1, made a hundred in that series and looked every inch the Test-match player. For whatever reason, things have gone downhill ever since.
“Basically, the challenge of hitting at number three is that you’re a starter in many ways. You can be, through no fault of the two guys in front of you, very early, so you have to have two games; you have You have to be able to play for your stump, line it up well, and sometimes you also have to go in and take the game a little bit, throw a counter punch.
“Ollie’s biggest thing really is in his own head. He’s had massive technical problems. But by all accounts he’s playing very well, scoring a lot of runs in county cricket.”
“Can he now transfer that undoubted talent into a mind calm enough to go out and take on the tough challenge of taking on New Zealand’s bowling attack and batting at number three? It’s not easy.”
Back in the England squad, and expected to be named in Lord’s starting XI, are James Anderson and Stuart Broad after the pair were dropped from the West Indies touring squad.
They have taken a combined 1,177 wickets at Test level and despite their advanced years Anderson 39 and Broad 35, former New Zealand fast bowler Simon Doull said it was no surprise to see them back, although he was he asks how much longer Anderson can go on. at the highest level as he prepares to turn 40 this summer.
