Dawid Malan, the England top-order batsman, is keen to prove a point when he makes his England return in the three-match Twenty20 International series against West Indies.
Malan last played for England in a Test against India in Birmingham in August 2018. Dropped from the Test squad subsequently, he has been absent from international cricket altogether. This despite 250 runs in the five T20Is he has played, at an average of 50 and strike-rate of 150.
Malan now has a chance to press his case again, with England having rested T20 regulars Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler for the West Indies games, in a bid to regulate their workload ahead of the Indian Premier League, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 and the Ashes.
“You always want to play more and, when you average 50 with a strike-rate of 150, you do, probably selfishly, think you should be playing a bit more,” Malan said ahead of the first T20I on Tuesday, 5 March. “It’s never easy being dropped. It’s your dream to play international cricket and you think it’s gone at that time. It’s been tough.”
Malan acknowledged that he probably didn’t make as many runs as he should have when he was part of the squad: 74 runs in five innings against Pakistan and India. Even so, he felt it was a little hard on him after a “breakthrough winter” in which he was England’s leading run-scorer in the 2017-18 Ashes with 383 runs at 42.55. Those runs included a maiden Test century.
“After that winter – the breakthrough winter – to have five innings and then be out of all three formats was pretty tough. You always have a few questions why.
“I definitely believe I’m good enough to play Test cricket. Five [six] innings ago in Test cricket, I passed fifty. In my last T20 innings, I passed fifty. I still believe I can play international cricket. I still believe I’m good enough. It’s just when I get the opportunity to score runs to show the selectors and both captains, and people around the world, that I am good enough.”
Malan also admitted to taking it hard when chief selector Ed Smith explained that the decision to drop Malan stemmed from the fact that his game might be better-suited to overseas conditions. “It’s obviously hard when you play your whole career in a country to be told you’re suited somewhere else,” Malan said. “It is disappointing to be tagged with that.
“I played with Ed at Middlesex and I’ve never had an issue with him. We did speak about a few things and were quite honest with each other, which is the way it should be.
“There’s been no dramas about that. From my point of view and Ed’s point of view, it’s just a case of, ‘if you want to get back in the Test team, score as many runs as you can in county cricket’. It’s pretty simple: score big runs, play the right way, and if there’s a spot available, he could come knocking. I probably didn’t score as many runs as I should have done in those five innings after the winter.
“So for me, it’s about proving a point and showing I can play all over the world. My record across both formats… is okay in Test cricket to say the least and decent in T20 cricket. So it’s just about scoring runs to get the opportunity to bat in both of those.
“The guys that haven’t played want to show what they can do and that’s a massive driving point for us. It makes us a dangerous team that guys coming in want to prove a point.”
