Liam Dawson earned his Test selection largely on the strength of his impressive net-bowling in white-ball cricket. But he indicated on debut that he is made of the right stuff
George Dobell in Chennai17-Dec-20162:13
Trott: England’s best spinner is not even on this tour
It tells you much about how spin bowlers are selected these days that England’s trio contributed 272 runs between them in the first innings in Chennai.Maybe, if there were a standout specialist spinner vying for selection, things would be different. Or maybe there is one in Jack Leach and England have just come to the conclusion that their spinners, like their wicketkeepers, need to be able to bat. The likes of Peter Such or John Childs might well find it hard to make a living from the game if they were entering it now.But whatever the drawbacks of the situation – and there is no denying that the difference in quality of spin bowling has been a defining feature of this series – the fact is that England were dug out of a hole in Chennai by their spinning allrounders.Liam Dawson might be the apogee of this type of selection. He has never taken 30 first-class wickets in a season, he has only taken three five-wicket hauls in his career, and only one of them has been in the last four seasons. Even he admitted that playing a Test on this tour “hadn’t crossed his mind” a few weeks ago.Yet here, with England’s first innings faltering, he batted with class and composure to ensure his new teammates retained a foothold in a match that seemed to be slipping from them.England were 300 for 6 when he came to the crease. Shortly afterwards they were 321 for 7 and in danger of subsiding to the sort of inadequate total that would leave them on the back foot for the rest of the match. Anything less than 400, maybe even 450, fell into that category.He endured an uncertain start. He was struck on the helmet by his second delivery, a super bouncer from Ishant Sharma that followed him as he attempted to lean out of the way, and took nine balls to get off the mark.But, if the nerves were growing, they didn’t show. He left the ball as well as anyone, defended the spinners better than several more experienced colleagues – he seemed to pick Ravi Ashwin’s carom ball and Amit Mishra’s googly, for a start – and put away the loose delivery efficiently and with a style more than a little reminiscent of Joe Root. It was unhurried, unflustered and exactly what his team required. With Adil Rashid also playing with impressive discipline, England added 146 runs for their last three wickets. It might prove to be the difference between a draw and a defeat.We probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Dawson has spent a fair part of his career playing as a specialist batsman. In 2008, aged just 18, he made his maiden first-class century against a strong Nottinghamshire attack containing Graeme Swann, while in 2011, a season in which he took only three first-class wickets, he opened the batting for Hampshire and scored over 900 first-class runs.Liam Dawson made the highest score by an England No. 8 on debut•AFPFor a while it seemed his spin-bowling days were over. His progress had been blocked, in part, by Danny Briggs (a specialist left-arm spinner), who developed through the Hampshire system at much the same time and was first choice for a few seasons, and the signing of Imran Tahir as an overseas player in his early years. With Mason Crane, a highly-rated legspinner, then coming through as well, he was allowed to go out on loan to Essex in the middle of 2015.The spell worked wonders for him. He opened the batting in his second match and scored 99 as well as claiming a few important wickets to both regain his confidence and show to Hampshire that he was in the form to warrant another run in their side. Within a few weeks, he had scored 140 against the county champions, Yorkshire, and taken a five-for against Somerset. Essex were keen to lure him back on a permanent deal but he stuck with Hampshire.Just as importantly, he enjoyed such a good List A season – at one stage he contributed four half-centuries in five innings and claimed 6 for 47 against Sussex – that he squeezed Briggs out of the side and, as a consequence, out of the club. Keen not to see his own England ambitions fade, Briggs (who has represented England eight times in limited-overs cricket) moved to Sussex for the prospect of more regular first-team cricket in all formats. It left Dawson, for the first time in his career, his club’s first-choice spinner.”He always wanted to bowl more,” Giles White, the Hampshire director of cricket, recalls. “And he has had to wait a while to become our first choice.”We do tend to use him in a defensive role, but he gets good revs on the ball – in the tests they do at Loughborough he is right up there with the biggest spinners – and nice dip. If you’re looking for an allround package, he is an excellent choice.”Fortune was to smile on him again a few months later. With Zafar Ansari (whom he also replaced on this tour) sustaining an injury, Dawson was, somewhat surprisingly, called-up to replace him in the Performance Squad at the end of 2015 and, in the nets, impressed the England team management (as much with his power hitting as his bowling) to such an extent that he was included in the World T20 squad in India.It was an intriguing selection. He had slipped down the pecking order to such an extent at Hampshire the previous summer that he batted only once in their T20 campaign (he scored 3) and did not take a wicket. But while he did not play in India, he again impressed with his attitude and his package of skills.It is, on the face of it, an extraordinary thing that a man can win Test selection for England based – in part, at least – on his net bowling with a white ball. But we know we are not in a rich age of English spinners and we know that, perhaps Leach apart, there are few specialists who could claim they would have changed the complexion of this series. We know there are no Graeme Swann or Monty Panesar figures available these days. The selection of Dawson – and Moeen, about whom many of the same things could be said but who really is the best off-spinner in England – is not without some logic.Why? Well, the team management concluded Dawson was not likely to suffer stage-fright of the type that afflicted Simon Kerrigan. They concluded that, even if he wasn’t able to rip through a line-up – and, to be fair, he beat the bat in his only over of day two – he could help build pressure which could, perhaps, lead to wickets for other bowlers. They concluded that, if a half-chance comes his way, he is more likely than others of accepting it and, they concluded that, if he came into bat with the game in the balance, he could tilt it England’s way. He went some way to proving them right on Saturday.It is not Dawson’s fault that the system has failed to the extent where England hardly produces spin bowlers. It is not Dawson’s fault that he may be a better batsman than bowler and that he will, on day three (and probably day four) find himself bowling in different conditions and against a different quality of player than that to which he is accustomed. He acquitted himself well on day two and you can be sure he will not let England down on day three. No-one could reasonably ask for more.
