a second-innings century against Hampshire last week,<\/a> although it was his first hundred in the competition since April 2025.<\/p>\nThe left-hander regularly features for the England Lions, scoring a century on his debut against Sri Lanka A in early 2023, making another hundred against India A in 2025 and touring Australia last winter.<\/p>\n
When asked what Haines required to break into the squad, Flower – a former Test opener himself – replied: “Hundreds, big hundreds \u2013 that’s what the best players do.”<\/p>\n
What may be counting against Haines is his returns in Division One.<\/p>\n
In 2021, he passed the 1,000-run barrier in Division Two. When Sussex got promoted in 2024, Haines scored 819 runs in 20 innings, at an average of 40.95.<\/p>\n
In his first season in the top flight, he made 843 runs but across 26 innings, with his average therefore dropping to 36.65. And in 2026, Haines scored 727 runs, at an average of 31.60.<\/p>\n
Flower, who played 67 Tests for Zimbabwe between 1992 and 2004 and is leaving Sussex’s backroom staff after five years to join Surrey, is confident Haines can make the step up.<\/p>\n
“He’s got the world at his feet,” Flower told BBC Radio Sussex. <\/p>\n
“He’s got the natural talent. He’s just got to get the mental side 100% right, which I’m sure he can do.<\/p>\n
“Technically, I don’t think he’s doing too many things differently [over the past five years], but I think mentally he’s got a bit tougher [and he is] making some better decisions.<\/p>\n
“I think he’s matured as a person, to be honest. I think he’s getting better all the time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sussex opener Tom Haines has “the world at his feet” but needs more big scores to force his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787630","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=787630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}