Little and large batting combinations can be devastating in cricket – here's why

New York Times

2 days ago

Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett are a sporting odd couple.
They may open the batting together for England but that is where the similarities end. One is big, one small. One is right-handed, one left. Even in style, they are a contrast, with Crawley preferring big drives down the ground, while Duckett sweeps and cuts on either side of the wicket.
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But from England's perspective, their marriage of convenience is working as they become one of the best opening partnerships in the country's Test history.
Crawley (the 'large' in this little and large pairing) may have his doubters, but it is the package he forms with Duckett that has helped encourage England captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum to put so much faith in him.
Their stand of 166 for the first wicket in the fourth Test against India at Old Trafford last week was their fifth of more than a hundred runs, and took them into the top 15 of Test cricket's most prolific partnerships. They also probably offer the format's biggest extremes in terms of appearance and approach.
Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss remain England's greatest opening pair with 12 century partnerships and 4,711 runs but Crawley and Duckett — also good friends off the field — already have a better average: 45.55 for their 2,369 runs together compared to 40.96 for Cook and Strauss.
It is that contrast between them which both sets them apart as players and is a significant factor in their success. Crawley stands at 6ft 5in (196cm), towering above the 5ft 7in (170cm) Duckett, making them a unique challenge for opposing bowlers, who have a very different batter to contend with whenever they rotate the strike.
James Taylor and Will Jefferson know all about that.
They formed perhaps the only batting partnership in English cricket history of greater extremes in stature than Crawley and Duckett when they played for Leicestershire between 2010 and 2012.
Jefferson, at 6ft 10in, is one of the tallest batters to have played professional cricket while Taylor, who made seven Test appearances for England, was one of the shortest at 5ft 4in. They were cricket's ultimate little and large.
'I really enjoyed batting with James,' Jefferson tells The Athletic. 'I was an opener and whenever he walked out to join me, even if there wasn't that big a crowd at a county game, there were these oohs and aahs over what's this going to look like. There are a couple of great pictures of us standing together in the middle.
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'In terms of my height, I wanted to get on the front foot and wanted to drive back down the ground, while James was a very punchy player with cuts and pulls and sweeps, because of his stature. It is harder to contain players of those two extremes at the same time. It works even better when you've got a left-hand and right-hand combination, like England.'
Taylor, now a coach at Leicestershire having previously been an England selector, relished those difficulties presented to bowlers whenever he joined Jefferson in the middle. And he can see the benefits of England sticking with Duckett and Crawley as their openers.
'Naturally, bowlers have to adjust their lengths because of the height difference, but you've also got two massively contrasting styles with both Duckett and Crawley, as it was with me and Jefferson,' Taylor tells The Athletic.
'Zak plays very much with a straight bat and Ducky is cross-bat, so there's not only a huge adjustment in length but bowlers have to adjust again with their lines. You have to bowl incredibly tight to Ducky, and you haven't got much margin for error because you've got a guy who doesn't leave the ball and plays a lot of cross-bat, even when he's driving.
'Then Crawley stands on top of the ball and hits your best ball, your best length, for four. It was the same with me and Jefferson. It's a reset of the field, it's a reset in lengths and mindset. The other thing is it's a left-hand/right-hand partnership too, which can be extremely frustrating for the bowlers because they have to change everything.
'It makes sense, because the balls that are full can be a little bit shorter to us and smaller players like me have grown up playing more cross-bat shots than the taller guys. We have grown up not getting so many short balls, so we might be better at certain shots.'
Jefferson, who now runs a leadership and management training company, may not have made it any higher than representing England A — the second team — during a county career that also included spells at Essex and Nottinghamshire, but his height was so unusual in the game that it could be disconcerting even for international-level bowlers.
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'I once faced Stuart MacGill, the Australian leg-spinner (who took over 200 Test wickets in his career), and he just could not find his lengths to me,' says Jefferson. 'He bowled me a very high number of bad balls to hit. They were either far too short or far too full, and that was a clear indicator of the problem he faced. When (Essex team-mate) Aftab Habib came out to bat with me, he would have a big smile on his face. He knew he would get more balls to score off because I was at the other end.
'One memory I have is batting with (former Zimbabwe international) Andy Flower at Essex. He wasn't tall, and he was also left-handed, and his game was so different to mine in terms of the amount of reverse sweeps he played.
'It was incredibly off-putting for a spin bowler, and in that case you had short and tall and left and right, just like with Duckett and Crawley now. We had some great partnerships together, and it is that diversity that creates the difficulty in allowing a bowler to settle into a rhythm.
'Duckett and Crawley often score at more than five an over and are also averaging 45 as a pair. They're rattling along and it helps that there's that point of difference in terms of their shapes and sizes.'
Taylor was involved in another partnership of extremes on his Test debut, when he joined the 6ft 4in Kevin Pietersen at the crease against South Africa at Headingley in 2012.
It was a match that later became infamous because of the emergence of texts Pietersen sent to South African players advising them on how to bowl at England captain Strauss, but it was also one where he put on 147 first-innings runs with England's diminutive debutant.
Pietersen was clearly not that impressed with his new colleague, as he was later to write in his autobiography that Taylor should have been a jockey rather than a cricketer. But it was a stand that was crucial in England drawing that Test, and one that Taylor relished.
'There's no question the two very different styles of batting, because of our height differences and styles, helped us that day,' says the 35-year-old Taylor, who was forced to retire in 2016 after being diagnosed with a serious heart condition. 'KP (Pietersen) did the bulk of the scoring while I settled in and played the situation and tried to get him on strike so he could attack them. He had such a wide array of shots, he could dominate them (the South Africa bowlers) while I sat in and played for him.
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'KP could be unorthodox in his shot selection, but Zak hits the ball incredibly hard for an orthodox batsman who's really tall. He hits the best balls for four at the top of the bounce — that's probably his USP — and that's something Will also did very well. Of all the players I played with, Jefferson probably hit the ball hardest from orthodox shots, and that's a bit like Zak — tall batsmen who hit the best balls for four.'
Crawley may still only be averaging 31.40 individually from his 58 Tests, far too low for an established opening batter, but he made 84 in that stand at Old Trafford, along with 65 in a second-innings opening partnership of 188 with Duckett that went a long way towards England successfully chasing 371 to win the first Test of this series against India last month.
So there is no question England will still keep faith with him for their Ashes tour this winter, where they believe the extra pace and bounce in the Australian pitches will suit those drives on the bounce Taylor talks about. Along with a partner in Duckett who averages 42.69 from his 37 games and, as he showed with 94 at Old Trafford, is in the form of his life.
'Nobody wants to bowl at them,' says Taylor. 'Zak can hit your best ball for four, and then you have Ducky leaving just two per cent of his deliveries, which is about six per cent less than anyone else. It becomes so hard to contain.
'Ducky is probably the best multi-format player in the world right now, and he's great fun to watch. He's different and slightly unorthodox but he knows his game incredibly well, and that complements a pretty orthodox batsman at the other end in Zak. I love watching both of them, and I hope they continue together for a long time yet.'
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