{"id":282495,"date":"2025-11-25T13:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/282495\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T13:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:07:09","slug":"the-ashes-2025-26-zak-crawley-is-short-of-form-so-why-do-they-keep-picking-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/282495\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2025-26: Zak Crawley is short of form – so why do they keep picking him?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reality, though, is the batter England have picked specifically for this Ashes<\/a> series began with two ducks. <\/p>\n

It could, quite literally, not have gone worse.<\/p>\n

Having invested so much, dropping Crawley after one Test and promoting a debutant from the Lions or asking Will Jacks or Jacob Bethell to open for the first time would be an even more erratic move.<\/p>\n

However, there are concerning trends Crawley must correct – most startling a sharp downturn in his record against high pace.<\/p>\n

Crawley’s preference for speed was reflected in a career average of 48.25 against deliveries over 87mph at the start of this summer’s drawn series against India.<\/p>\n

Since then he averages six against such deliveries, with five dismissals in 54 balls at the hands of Starc, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna.<\/p>\n

Pace, though, was not necessarily Crawley’s problem in Perth. <\/p>\n

If anything he was early on the shot when caught-and-bowled by Starc in the second innings. <\/p>\n

Instead, what connects both failures was the fact they were again both drives – the first aggressive swish edged to the slips before a more tentative push.<\/p>\n

With pitches in Australia tougher than ever and the refined Kookaburra seaming more, driving is fraught with far more danger these days.<\/p>\n

Crawley averages 55.5 with the shot at home but only 8.25 in Australia, with four dismissals in eight innings. His strength, as so often happens, is also a weakness. <\/p>\n

It leaves, despite all the talk and hope, Crawley’s average in Australia at 20.75. <\/p>\n

England will give him time and have little alternative. <\/p>\n

But results are not backing up the theory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reality, though, is the batter England have picked specifically for this Ashes series began with two ducks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-282495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}