4th Test, Day 2: England 225-2 (Duckett 94, Crawley 84) trail India 358 (Sudharsan 61 | Stokes 5-72) by 133 runs
OLD TRAFFORD — When it works, as it did on an action-packed second day of this fourth Test, England’s opening combination of Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley is electric.
The pair are an intimidating prospect for bowlers on flatter pitches like the one here in Manchester, less so on ones that offer more.
The little and large, left and right-hand combo are perfectly imperfect, yet at their best they set the tone and tempo for this England team.
Crawley, whose form this summer, and over his entire 58-Test career, has been scratchy, is the weak link in this partnership. Like Andrew Ridgeley in Wham.
Zak Crawley goes BIG against Jadeja pic.twitter.com/oPVeOU5lK6
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 24, 2025He’s lucky to still be in the team. Less forgiving England set-ups of the past – basically every single one – would have jettisoned him by now. As it is, the Bazball regime maintain a belief that Crawley will rise to the occasion against the very best teams.
That faith has been put to the test over the past few weeks, when his highest score in four innings was 22 amid an apparent crisis of confidence in his technique.
Yet back at the ground where he scored 189 against Australia in the 2023 Ashes, he was back in the groove with an innings of 84 during a 166-run partnership with Duckett.
Crawley took 14 balls to get off the mark and was never completely fluent. However, this innings will keep the selection wolf at the door for now.
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Duckett, whose own form nosedived after his match-winning 149 in last month’s series opener at Headingley, looked certain to score another century here until he found a way to get himself out in the 90s for the third time in his Test career.
Both openers will curse themselves for failing to reach three figures, yet this was a performance that underlines why England will keep faith with this pairing until this winter’s Ashes series.
It was welcome too. Other than the 188 that set up England’s epic chase of 371 at Headingley, their second highest stand before this in the series was 43.
England will need more consistency when they take on Australia’s much-vaunted pace attack this winter.
Crawley and Duckett’s average as an opening pair during that 2023 home Ashes was 39.88. A repeat of that later this year in Australia probably won’t be enough to tip the balance of the series in their team’s favour.
It’s worth noting that when England last won in Australia during the winter of 2010-11, the opening pair of Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss averaged 78.4 runs for the first wicket.
The average of England’s revolving cast of openers in the three Ashes series since has, quite simply, been pathetic.
In 2013-14, when Mitchell Johnson terrorised England during a 5-0 whitewash, the average for the opening pair of Cook and Michael Carberry was 25.
And that’s as good as it’s been for England since. In 2017-18, Cook and Mark Stoneman averaged 21.44. In 2021-22 that number fell to 18.3. No surprise given the very first ball of that series at the Gabba saw Rory Burns bowled by Mitchell Starc.
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In all, England used three opening pairs on that Covid-ravaged tour, Burns starting with Haseeb Hammed, before Crawley joined Hameed for Tests three and four and then linked up with Burns for the final match in Hobart.
Over those past three tours England have lost by an aggregate of 13-0, finagling just two draws along the way.
The last one of those, in Sydney in January 2022, was notable for Crawley scoring a fine 77 off 100 balls in England’s second innings.
It’s almost as if the Kent opener has lived off that innings and the one here in Manchester in the 2023 Ashes ever since.
England will keep faith with a duo who now have five century partnerships together and an average 45.55 as an opening pair.
That figure is better than the 40.96 England’s last great opening pair of Cook and Strauss averaged together.
They, of course, did it Down Under. Duckett and Crawley have at least offered hope they might be able to do something similar this winter.
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