Zak Crawley bound to struggle against quality bowlers: Nick Compton

The former England opener Nick Compton has advised the young English batter, Zak Crawley, to work on his defensive game via his tweet. 

Talking about the possible flaw in Crawley’s game, Compton has stated that although the dashing opener has a tremendous capacity to hit boundaries, he lacks a perfect defence. He will be worked out easily by teams having top-class bowling units unless he works on this aspect of his batting. 

“Crawley, while he clearly has some attractive attacking options/talent, will struggle against a quality opening attack unless he does some work on his defence”, Compton has tweeted. 

Compton has also mentioned that Crawley standing on the off-stump is fine, but he plays at the deliveries that he needn’t with his bat coming across the line of the ball. 

“Stands on off-stump which is [thumbs up emoji] but then plays at balls that he needn’t with the line of his bat coming across the ball”, Compton has further added to his tweet. 

On the other hand, something similar has been mentioned by the ex-England international Nasser Hussain regarding Crawley’s flawed technique in his column in the Daily Mail. 

Hussain has termed Crawley’s habit of driving the ball with a closed bat face an ‘obvious flaw’ and predicted that the young right-handed batter is susceptible to seaming deliveries, particularly at home. 

“The problem he has faced is an obvious flaw in his technique. Because of his strong bottom hand and the way his bat comes down from about fourth slip towards mid-on, he drives with a closed face, making him vulnerable when the ball is doing a bit off the seam- as it usually does in England”, Hussain wrote. 

But the former England captain has stressed that all batsmen have some or the other flaw, but that should be diagnosed and resolved in time, which is the obvious job of a good batting coach.

He has also clarified that even Crawley himself would be aware of this issue and won’t enjoy facing the pace attacks of New Zealand and South Africa in the upcoming home summer. However, despite that, Crawley has the potential to be backed up by England in his favour. 

“All batsmen have their technical issues, and they’re usually quite easy to spot. What marks out the best coaches are the ones who can suggest a remedy. There’s no question he’s worth persevering with. 

“He also knows that his technique will come under greater scrutiny on more testing surfaces than the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. Back in England, against the Dukes' ball, he will find the seam attacks of New Zealand and South Africa a bit less obliging”, Hussain further wrote in his column. 

Regarded as a good stroke player, Crawley’s test career has been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride so far. He rose to fame during the 2020 English summer by smashing a marathon knock of 267 runs against Pakistan. 

The Kent-born had a horrible year with the bat in 2021 but made a decent comeback in the Ashes down under. Although he hit a glorious century in the second innings of the Antigua Test, he has managed to score only 48 runs in the other three innings he has batted in the West Indies series so far.