Watch: England axe beckons for Zak Crawley as his hopeless run continues

Scyld BerryMon, May 11, 2026 at 1:14 PM UTC

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Zak Crawley started well on the fourth day of Kent’s match with Gloucestershire, before going rapidly downhill - Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Zak Crawley batted as if he had given up all hope of retaining his England place. Kent needed 261 to win, for an important victory to boost their morale – and to his 21st ball he tried a shot that many England openers would never have attempted in their whole career.

If this game was Crawley’s last-chance saloon – England’s first Test squad is expected later this week – he had a couple of drinks, swept out of the swing-doors and went down in a hail of gunfire from the sheriff’s men. Telegraph Sport has suggested he should reinvent himself, but no, not yet, he is only 28, and he was going to bat the same old way, with all its strengths and all its weaknesses.

As no member of England’s management team has cared to fall on his sword, and take responsibility for an assault on the Ashes that was not so much a bang as a whimper, it has to be a player who gets the chop; and Crawley seems to know already who that is going to be.

After Kent had taken the one remaining Gloucestershire wicket, Crawley walked out promptly with his partner Ben Dawkins, who is almost as tall, and the two umpires. It was so chilly that they wore black gloves, and Crawley might have wondered if this was ominous: that a black finger would soon be raised against him.

Crawley hit his first ball for four: it was little more than a leg-glance but this is one of his strengths, to set the scoreboard rolling immediately, taking the attack to the bowler. Shades of the opening ball of the 2023 Ashes, which Crawley cover-drove at Fortress Edgbaston (only it turned out not to be).

A single off his second ball, again off Will Williams, took Crawley up the other end. But there is no setting up of a stall. Crawley does not play himself in; he plays his shots until he gets out.

Will Williams clean-bowled Crawley who walked after scoring just 17 runs - Dan Mullan/Getty Images

In the fifth over, bowled by a cagey Tasmanian seamer Gabe Bell, Crawley tried an extraordinary shot, trying to hit a length ball over mid-on and miscuing a four. The next ball he nailed with an almost straight-drive, the one where the bowler thinks of a low-down caught-and-bowled, but too late because the ball has shot past.

Crawley was soon facing Williams again, and frustrated not to get the first three balls away. James Bracey was standing up, keeping Crawley in his crease, restricting his options. The fourth was straighter. Crawley went again for the drive that whips the ball over mid-on, preferably for six, and completely missed.

It is a sound saying that Test-class openers do not get bowled – not clean-bowled, perhaps the occasional unclean-bowled when dragging on. But there the stumps were, bail-less, and Crawley had not even got a bat on it.

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In what might have been his comeback season, or his re-inventing season, Crawley has scored 9, 20, 26, 5, 27, 31, 44, 15, 1 and 17 for Kent in the championship: 195 runs at an average of 19.

Hadley edges Glamorgan to two-wicket victory over Somerset

Ryan Hadley finished unbeaten on 50 off 231 balls - Gareth Everett/Shutterstock

In one of the most resolute of all nightwatchmen innings, and the complete antithesis of Bazball, Ryan Hadley blocked Glamorgan inch by inch to a two-wicket victory over Somerset and into third place in division one.

Hadley, from Sydney, had faced 250 balls in his entire first-class career of 19 matches. Coming in on the third evening in Cardiff, with Glamorgan chasing 283, Hadley stopped the straight balls, missed the wide ones and finished unbeaten on 50 off 231 balls.

A Welsh revival continues under their head coach Richard Dawson, who is advancing his case to do the same job for England in the near or more distant future. Glamorgan are now achieving the right blend between home-grown and overseas players.

Somerset’s hopes of their first championship title, after winning two of their first three games, have taken a nose-dive after consecutive losses to Yorkshire and Glamorgan. But it can hardly be otherwise when their top order regularly fails, and they are constantly 30 for three, or in this game 32 for six in their second innings after an 18 year-old seamer from Abergavenny, Tom Norton, a strapping debutant, had taken a hat-trick.

One of the Somerset players, Jack Leach, had been an effective nightwatchman himself, scoring 92 against Ireland at Lord’s in 2019. Against Glamorgan, on a pitch with something for all bowlers, Leach was given one solitary over, and then he nearly bowled Hadley, while three of Somerset’s seamers bowled 30 overs or more.

It was a bad game too for James Rew and those who had called for him to open the batting for Somerset with a view to doing the same for England. He scored four and nought, and did not go for a catch that ended up being dropped by Lewis Gregory at first slip to his left. Had Rew been a right hand-dominant keeper, he might have been more likely to go for that chance.

Warwickshire recorded their second highest victory by a margin of runs when they defeated Yorkshire by 377 at Edgbaston. Yorkshire imploded the moment Harry Brook was bowled on the second morning. “Credit to Warwickshire,” said Yorkshire’s head coach Anthony McGrath. “They showed us how to bowl on that pitch. They never missed their lengths, and there was enough in that pitch throughout.”

As the season advances, pitches appear to offer the bowlers more carry and the bore-draws have become fewer, although the Notts vs Surrey game was one in this penultimate round before the break. Crawley’s opening partner for England, Ben Duckett, helped himself to 203 not out.

Few counties have been consistent, and a prevailing pattern has been to win one game by a large margin then lose the next by a large margin. Derbyshire won their first game of this season, beating Northamptonshire by an innings and 113 runs.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”