England's obscured improvement is too little, too late

Zak Crawley has a habit of getting underneath his opponents' skin. At Lord's earlier this year, India captain Shubman Gill angrily told him to "grow some f*****g balls" when he successfully turned two overs of play before stumps into one.

Pat Cummins, perhaps wary of Crawley's reputation, or maybe just because his side were well on top in this Test, kept his cool when the opener pulled off a similar trick before lunch on Saturday at Adelaide Oval. The Australia captain offered words but retained his toothpaste-commercial grade smile as Crawley safely played inside the session's final ball, which he had ensured was delivered only after the clock ticked past noon.

"You don't want to face two overs," Crawley told The Times earlier this year about his time-wasting against India. "Every opener in the world would do the same and, if they didn't, I'd think they were foolish."

It has frustrated England fans that Crawley's capacity to grow from his mistakes has not always matched those game-smarts nor his obvious talent. As Ben Stokes' men reckon with an 11-day Ashes capitulation, what now must be of even greater frustration is that a player as gifted as Crawley is actively obscuring a sense he actually has learnt from his mistakes.

Given the 27-year-old is playing the 62nd Test of a career littered with squandered opportunities, a 'most-improved' award might seem ridiculous. No batter in Test history who has opened at least 100 times has a lower batting average than his 31.17. And yet, from this series' first day in Perth to its 10th in Adelaide, Crawley may be England's only player to have gotten better the longer the tour has gone.

In Perth, Crawley, facing the hotly-anticipated summer-opening over from Mitchell Starc, edged its final ball attempting his second on-the-up drive in four balls before he had scored a run. After watching several of his teammates go out in identical fashion in the ensuing hours, Crawley returned the following day and was again dismissed for a duck trying to bash another length-ball from Starc down the ground.

"I don't listen to any outside noise, and that helps," Crawley said on Saturday. "I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty well before Perth. Two ducks doesn't change that.

"They were two pretty average shots, but that didn't change that I was in feeling in good nick. So I just tried to stick with that and play the same way. Obviously I've wanted more for myself, I wanted more today, I wanted more in Brisbane.

"I always want big scores that are going to change the course of the game. While I batted nicely (on day four in Adelaide), I haven't managed to do that, which is disappointing."

As much as Crawley denies it, it appears that he has played a different way since his Perth pair.

In Brisbane, Crawley copped flak for offering up another caught-and-bowled, this time to Michael Neser, in England's second innings after he had raced to 44 from 59 balls. Perhaps deservedly, too. That the visitors were batting in the most difficult period of the game – against Australia's four-pronged seam attack with a new ball under lights – when he went out was a mitigating factor.

In England's first innings at the Gabba, the visitors' ensuing collapse overshadowed Crawley's brisk 93-ball 76 that enabled Joe Root's breakthrough century after the pair had linked up when their team was reeling at 2-5.

On day two in Adelaide, he copped a borderline unplayable gem from Cummins while offering a tight forward press. They are the kinds of dismissals openers must cop when facing the new ball on Australian pitches. His response was to embark one of the more mature innings of England's tour.

During the 2023 Ashes at home, the right-hander had pumped balls on the up off Australia's tall quicks – never more memorably than on the first day of the series off Cummins – to finish as his side's leading run-getter. But today he put the drive away.

From his first 28 balls, almost half of which came from Cummins in the midst of his tremendous new-ball spell, Crawley scored just one run. Having batted for close to an hour, he finally allowed himself to press forward and thump a wide, full delivery from a tiring Starc to the boundary.

It was textbook opening batting – not that Crawley would admit to such a thing.

"I was just trying to see ball, hit ball really. It wasn't purposely slower," he said of his 151-ball 85 that was finally undone late on day four by some smart Nathan Lyon bowling.  

"They bowled well, they didn't give me a lot early. I was just trying to just play every ball on its merits. I certainly didn't change my technique."

Crawley denied Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum have issued any instructions on a more measured approach, and that he had simply instructed their group to bat with "freedom".

"We haven't spoken about that, no," he said. "I think they've bowled very well, and you look at (Scott) Boland just for one of them he just very rarely misses. So it's very it's hard to bat the way that we have in the past, perhaps.

"They have to get credit for that. They set good fields in fairness to them. It's just an attritional style of cricket over here, and they don't allow it. It's not as easy to score quickly out here."

It's a realisation England would have done well to have grasped earlier on this trip.

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (third Test only): Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue