Dan Lawrence is not an opening batsman. Why? His judgment around off stump is poor and his shot selection fraught with danger.
It was a smart alec decision to make him an opener when he bats down the order in county cricket for Essex and now Surrey. It is a specialist position; not one you can learn on the job in Test cricket.
Top class bowlers consistently aim for fourth or fifth stump outside off. That is where every batsman is vulnerable, particularly when the ball is new. Footwork is key. You have so little time against the pace and movement of a new ball that it is imperative your footwork is decisive, with bat and pad together. You cannot be indecisive. In the first innings to the left-arm seamer going across him, Lawrence was tentative and unsure to the point where he just hung his bat out and was caught behind.
Second innings, he wafted at a wide ball. Another delivery he opened the face and tried to steer it to third man with an open face. Those are ‘getting out’ shots and encourage bowlers to fancy bowling at him.
It doesn’t help the next guy in watching from the dressing room either. Lawrence is very comfortable when the ball is on the stumps and he can look to score on the on side.
He reminds me of Dom Sibley, who had moderate success opening for England in 22 Tests. Lawrence favours the on side and looking to score there all the time can be his undoing. That’s how he got out second innings, leg-before playing across the line instead of straight.
Top bowlers try not to stray on to middle or middle and leg too often. They know that is the safe side and it gives runs to an opener. He will have some success opening because he has some talent as a stroke player but will not be consistent.
Lawrence is a clean striker of the ball, has a range of strokes against spinners but long-term success as an opener will be achieved only if he tightens up his judgment around off stump and plays straighter. For now he is a square peg in a round hole while Zak Crawley is out injured.
Shoaib Bashir has talent and can get better. He is tall with a fluid high action that will create occasional bounce on hard pitches together with a natural loop. My impression is he is not clear on what line he should be bowling so he tries all sorts of deliveries searching for a wicket.
Over many years, most English off spinners have tended to bowl straighter and more at the stumps than those from around the world. This was because our guys bowled a lot on uncovered pitches and club grounds that had result surfaces that deteriorated and turned a lot in the second innings.
English Test match pitches have been fully covered since 1979 and preparation has got better over the years. Now they resemble overseas pitches with a lot less bounce. At the moment the best off-spinner in world cricket by a long way is Nathan Lyon, with 530 wickets at 30 runs each.
My advice would be go and look at film of Lyon bowling. He gets close to the stumps so he can find a touch of drift away from the batsman with his action but he aims to pitch outside off stump to spin back and hit the stumps. His straight-on ball brings slip in play and he has a short square leg for the bat/pad nick. That way he can beat right-handers inside and outside of the bat.
All great bowlers have to match line with length. Line is good but too short or too full then it is hittable. Great length but wrong, such as being too straight, gives easy runs on the leg side.
Shoaib must develop stock ball
Before he was a star, the young Shane Warne asked Richie Benaud for advice. Richie said learn a stock ball that you can bowl at will. He didn’t tell him to learn to bowl a googly, a top spinner, a flipper or a slider. It was a stock ball he could drop on a sixpence. That way even if Shane didn’t get you out, the batsmen had very few hittable balls and the pressure mounted on them.
I think Shoaib has to learn that he can’t always go searching for wickets, admirable as that is, because it can become expensive. Sometimes when two opposition batsmen get set on a flat batting pitch the seamers are given the best end and the spinner the worst end and asked to bowl uphill, or against the wind to do a holding job, keeping the batsmen quiet and runs to a minimum. That is why he needs a good stock ball.
When England were searching for wickets with a newish ball I thought they bowled too short and allowed Sri Lanka’s batsmen to stay back too much.
You need to be brave and pitch the ball up another two to three feet. Not half-volley length, but just enough to get the batsmen in two minds about whether to go forward or not. If a batsman can stay back to short-of-a-length deliveries then he has more time to watch the movement and adjust accordingly.
Once you get a guy committed forward, it is much more difficult to adjust to the swing or seam movement because he has less time to react.
England were pretty good when the ball jagged around but, once the shine and hardness went, they looked innocuous. Yet they still went on searching for wickets, trying harder and harder to bowl a magic ball which gave the batsmen variable lengths and easy runs. In the afternoon Kamindu Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal were winning the match for Sri Lanka, England lost control and the scoreboard rattled around.
Strauss era offers lesson
I think they could learn from Andrew Strauss’s time as captain. When it looked as if the ball was not doing anything and two batsmen were set, his field settings and his bowlers were so disciplined and patient at bowling dot balls. They made the runs dry up with defensive fields so the batsmen got stuck not scoring and that played on their minds.
They waited while the pressure built on the batsmen until one of them tried to break out with a false stroke. Control is everything and it is vital not to let the opposition get momentum. Once you lose control it can be very difficult to regain it.
That is why England had a scare. There was a moment when the match got away from them. It’s like playing chess; you need to know when to attack and when to defend.
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