Crawley hoping to carve a niche

Though he can count his first-class appearances on the fingers of both hands, Kent’s rookie batsman Zak Crawley is quickly carving out a niche as a dependable top-order performer, writes Mark Pennell.

The Bromley-born right-hander has enjoyed gradual progression during the winter months, scoring an unbeaten 99 in February against the Leeward Islands during Kent’s Caribbean Super50 campaign and then, on April 6, posting his maiden century for the first XI before retiring on 103 not out in Kent’s pre-season friendly with Surrey.

The 20-year-old also showed his maturity during Kent’s low-scoring defeat to Gloucestershire in the opening round of Specsavers County Championship matches by scoring 15 in 48 minutes to be first innings top-scorer.

On a spicy pitch, Crawley then battled for more than two hours in the second innings to score a resilient 32 – a score only bettered by Daniel Bell-Drummond.

Indeed, Crawley believes his close-season work and start to the domestic campaign really couldn’t have gone much better. He said: “I’ve loved every minute of it so far and scoring the hundred against Surrey was the icing on the cake. They had a pretty good bowling attack for that match and the pitch was doing plenty as well, so I worked hard early and then cashed in after that when they started to get a little tired.

“Sure, it was only a practice game, but it was a tremendous experience batting with Heino [Kuhn] and posting a double century stand. We came together with our score on eight for two and it was swinging quite a lot early on. The slope always comes into play at Canterbury, too, so it was a case of re-building.

“We weren’t looking to be too aggressive and Heino was just telling me to play each ball on its merits, but as it turned out they posted really aggressive fields early on and I managed to get full value for my strokes.”

Crawley added: “I don’t know whether it’s because I played at Tonbridge School, but whatever pitch I play on now and whether the ball is doing a lot or not, I restrict my early shots ‘to the V’ – that’s what I feel safest doing. It’s my best way of ‘getting in’, if you like.

“Heino is obviously a quality player and I really enjoyed our time out there. It was amazing how quickly he scored his runs. I felt he was batting fairly quietly, but suddenly I looked at the board to see he’d gone ahead of me. It was a pleasure to bat with him.”

Earlier in the close season Crawley followed in the footsteps of former Kent and England batsman Rob Key by travelling to Perth to work with Western Australia batting guru Neil ‘Noddy’ Holder.

He explained: “On Keysy’s recommendation I went out to work with ‘Noddy’ last year and felt it was the right thing to go back for some one-on-one time with him this winter. He brings a simplicity to your technique, he gets you to play with your hands up, and playing through the V. Noddy’s big on playing aggressively, too, trying to take the attack back to the bowler, which I really like.

“We also concentrated on the short ball, which is important to me as I’m stepping up a level now. In the championship I’m finding bowlers are quicker and more skilful. They also like to work the young rookies over a bit, so that time with Noddy was well spent.

“After that, I went out to India for a couple of weeks to work on my technique against spin bowling. I felt that was an area where I might improve and what better place to do it than there?”