Dan Lawrence breakthrough pleases ECB performance director Mo Bobat

JAMES COYNE: Essex batsman the standout from the Lions’ pleasingly successful tour of Australia after he turned down the PSL

Dan Lawrence’s run-spree with England Lions in Australia followed a challenge set at the start of the winter by two of the most influential figures in England selection.

In a Lions spin camp in Mumbai before Christmas, chairman of selectors Ed Smith and ECB performance director Mo Bobat spoke to Lawrence about him really coming good on his undoubted potential, which has been clear since he struck a century against Surrey at The Oval aged just 17.

And Lawrence has been the star of the successful Lions tour – striking 190 against a Cricket Australia XI at Hobart, followed up by 125 in the Lions’ notable win over Australia A at the MCG, and a fifty against New South Wales at Wollongong when bumped up to No.3.

It came after Lawrence withdrew from a Pakistan Super League stint with Karachi Kings in order to take up his Lions spot.

A successful summer with Essex might now make him a candidate for the troublesome No.3 spot in the Test team – though his hard-hitting pedigree and slightly unorthodox off-spin in white-ball cricket is well-known, too.

“I'd say he's been a player of potential in our minds for some time,” says Bobat. “I remember him being in my Bunbury Festival team!

“I first encountered him many years ago when I was coaching his region and then I was fortunate to have him in our under-19 cycle for two or three years, and obviously now spent some time in the Lions, so he's someone I know quite well.

“I enjoyed watching him bat [in Australia], certainly. I remember talking to him in Mumbai because he came on our batting and spin camp there, and both myself and Ed both spoke to him about the fact that there were a lot of people who rate the quality of his cricket. I think that we wanted to see him probably score the volume of runs that his for – want of a better phrase – talent deserved. And to be fair to him, he's gone out and done exactly that this trip.

“And before I left I congratulated him on that and set the challenge of doing exactly that this summer, which I hope he does. And if he does that he's not going to be far off.

“The thing he's hopefully done is prove to himself and others that he can score the volume of runs that he has scored and impact games the way he has in the way actually many of us believe that he was capable of.”

The Lions’ success in Australia comes at a timely juncture – and not just because an away Ashes is on the horizon. Bobat, appointed performance director in October after making his reputation as head of talent ID overhauling England’s scouting process, is keen to reposition the Lions programme from something “people might pass through on their way to play for England”, to “it being a range of experiences and expertise that players can access based on their needs”.

^{Mo Bobat was appointed to his new role in October}

Bobat’s philosophy is interesting, because he sees franchise cricket as a “potential competitive advantage” for the English system – as all but the IPL and Caribbean Premier League are played outside of the English season and therefore do not clash.

With so much competition for the ODI and T20I teams, and more franchise tournaments popping up, there are likely to be more dilemmas for English players about whether to develop their game within the Lions system, or take up a franchise gig.

From the ECB perspective, Bobat explains: “If I look at our winter it probably doesn't make a huge amount of sense for me to put on loads of white-ball competitive opportunities when a decent level of white-ball competitive opportunities are accessible [in franchise cricket].

“Putting on high quality red-ball opportunities add value because they can't be got anywhere else. So that's quite logical and probably the way that we will end up doing things.”

Either way, England will need more options going forward – given the relentless schedule ahead of England teams. He said that rest and rotation – even from major series – could be the only way of getting through.

"Ultimately I think it is my job to broaden and richen our talent pool. The better chance we've got to be able to select strategically, the better. If we fast-forward to that Ashes in a couple of years' time, the period before we play India at home for five Tests. Then we go to Bangladesh, then the T20 World Cup, then Ashes. If someone's going to play all of that cricket, and we expect them to peak at the Ashes, I think we're probably kidding ourselves."

On-field results are not always top of the Lions agenda, but it is hard not to get a little bit excited when they go through an Australia tour unbeaten. The Lions were fighting back in their final match against New South Wales at the time of writing, which if they drew would mean them going unbeaten through eight matches (with two lost to rain).

“I was slightly alarmed when I saw it [was] the first time [an England second-string] had beaten Australia A, ever,” said Bobat of the nine-wicket win in the day/night, pink-ball match at the MCG.

“It was slightly depressing in some ways, but it was good to obviously get that result. The thing was pleasing was the pattern to the game, the manner in which we played.”

Bobat confessed that the most recent results at Lions level had not been to the level the ECB would have liked. It is not so long since the Lions were being wiped 3-0 in their first-class series in the West Indies in 2017/18 and beaten 1-0 in India last winter.

“I think in recent years if you purely looked at win-percentage, I don't think our A-team win-percentage would probably be as high as we might have liked it to been.

“I always caveat that by saying the main purpose of our Lions or our A-team level cricket isn't just to win – it's about providing the right experiences for players, but that doesn't mean we don't want to be competitive.

“I think this winter we've had good examples of the system working well together and hopefully some players with some strong and sound basics. Getting add-value international experiences, provided by England, I think that's a good model of the counties doing their bit and us doing our bit and working together.”

^{England Lions beat Australia A for the first time ever}

It is no accident that the Lions’ route to success in Australia rested on the old-fashioned template of scoring big totals if presented with the chance to bat first: they racked up 613 for 8 declared against a Cricket Australia XI at Hobart, followed by 428 against Australia A.

“Before we went out there I remember briefing the players and I talked at length about what it takes to win out in Australia, and the way we wanted to approach getting results.

“It's not rocket science but we talked quite a lot around making the most of first-innings runs. I remember framing to the lads the significance of how long we're prepared to battle for, and what good looks like.

“I put up a slide up on the screen and it said of the four times [in Test cricket] we had last won in Australia in 20 years, in three of them we scored 500-plus runs in [our] first innings, and someone batted for more than four and a half or five hours.

“So to then do it under pressure against Australia A at the MCG was probably for me the most pleasing bit, almost regardless of the result. To get the result, was obviously fantastic.”

However, coaches of both England Lions and Under-19 sides have constantly stressed the paramount issue of placing players in high-pressure situations they will later face in Test cricket.

This tour was slightly different in that the ECB flew out three current Test players, Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley and Dominic Bess, after the South Africa series in order to top up their experience before the two Tests in Sri Lanka. There was a clear sense that the trio needed the muscle memory of scoring runs in Australian conditions before contemplating the Ashes tour in 2021/22.

Bobat said: “Quite perversely, I get really fascinated by the really flat days like they've just had [at Wollongong], where I was texting Daws [head coach Richard Dawson], saying ‘that's exactly the type of day I wanted to see’… [keeping the home side down to] 242 for 4. Daws was pretty happy that actually we didn't let the scoreboard get away from us. That's perfect, because that's what we're probably going to get faced with in the Ashes.

“Even the game at Hobart, watching Bessy bowl 50 overs for no joy was perfect for us in terms of assessing his capability. Could he hold length and bowl his best ball for long enough?

“So we want to be competitive, but for us and even the selectors who are out there, observing and assessing players in the type of environments and challenges and situations that you're going to get is exactly the purpose of it.”

Throughout world cricket there have been concerns about the standard of opposition put up by home boards in both full team warm-up and A-team series. However, Bobat was bullish about the standard selected by Australia A in the day/night Test, while the Australia full side was in South Africa, and the Big Bash and Sheffield Shield have both been ongoing.

“I thought it was pretty good opposition. You only have to look at the last time the Lions went there, and we played seven and lost seven. I think you could face any opposition and it’s quite challenging in Australia, so certainly the Australia A team was more than adequate.

“The Australia A team had 153 international caps across nine players [including 93 to Usman Khawaja]. We had 36 caps international caps across five players. So I think they were more than adequate in terms of opposition.

“Playing a day/night game with the pink ball might have levelled things slightly from our perspective. It did move a fair bit certainly on the first evening; when we were batting it probably moved most on that first evening. The other balls probably didn't move quite so much as we thought were going to.”