England Test opener Zak Crawley aims to improve his skills in ‘quite suited’ white-ball format

England Test opener Zak Crawley hopes to play a more consistent role in the white-ball side and feels that the 50-over and T20 formats are “quite suited” for his style of play.
Since making his debut for England in 2021, Crawley has played in just eight ODIs, averaging 28.42, amassing 199 runs. He has not yet been included in the T20 squad.
Following a terrible summer in 2022 with the Test team, in which he scored seven single-digit scores and only managed one fifty in 13 innings, Crawley has been one of England’s best players ever since, evoking requests for his inclusion in the white-ball arena.
“I’ve always wanted to be a good white-ball player. I’m trying to add a few other shots to my game, but I feel like it’s quite suited and I’ve gone well in T20 cricket in the past when I’ve had a run at it,” Crawley told the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.
“In the last few years, things weren’t particularly going so well so I wanted to concentrate on the red ball and stay in that team – it was always my priority for me to play Test cricket. That will always be my number one format – it means the most to me – but playing any format for England is a huge honour and playing white-ball cricket is something I really want to do,” he added.
“I’m trying to add a bit more power to my game, I’m working hard in the nets trying a few different things to hopefully hit more and bigger sixes,” Crawley said.
Crawley ascribed his Test match turnaround down to the backing of head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, who persisted with him during his lean spell in 2022.
Since the summer of 2022, the 26-year-old opener has averaged 41.60 in his 16 Test matches. He has also amassed two hundreds, including a stunning 168 at Old Trafford during the Ashes series tie last summer.
“When I was in bad form in 2022, I found myself reading a lot more [criticism]. But luckily I’ve got out of that trend now and I don’t read positive or negative. It’s really what I’ve been working on this last year, which has helped my form massively, that dealing with failure,” Crawley said.
“In India, I was trying to get into this headspace where the results were pre-determined – ‘I’ve done all my work’, leave it up to fate. That helped massively to realise I’m not in control of the result – just go out and play,” he added. (ANI)