Dark Dhaka days are gone, says Laurie Evans as hot T20 property prepares for PSL

SAM MORSHEAD IN DUBAI: After six sensational months in short-form cricket, across three tournaments around the world, Evans hit a bump in the Bangladesh Premier League at the start of 2019. However much he revved his engines, they kept on spluttering

Stuck between the four walls of his Dhaka hotel room, out of nick, under pressure and away from his new wife, Laurie Evans experienced a low the likes of which he had almost forgotten.

After six sensational months in short-form cricket, across three tournaments around the world, Evans hit a bump in the Bangladesh Premier League at the start of 2019. However much he revved his engines, they kept on spluttering and failing.

A duck against Comilla Victorians, 2 versus Rangpur Riders, another failure in the clash with Khulna Titans; 13 runs in five innings all told, hardly the return Rajshahi Kings had expected from their hot-property overseas.

Evans had, in part, made a rod for his own back with his brilliance in the T20 Blast for Sussex Sharks, Kabul Zwanan in the Afghanistan Premier League and Rajputs in the T10 League. No one in world T20 cricket could boast a better 2018 average than the Lambeth boy’s 81.9. He had been striking at over 140 in the format over the course of the year, too, just for good measure.

“It was the first time since the previous summer that I’d gone through a patch of failures. It was always going to happen at some stage but I struggled,” he tells The Cricketer, moments after a net session with Multan Sultans in Dubai.

“I hadn’t batted for a month, got married, had a great time over Christmas and new year, flew home from a week’s honeymoon and went straight to Bangladesh.

“I hadn’t hit a cricket ball, I’d had one training session and I was completely underprepared.

“The wickets were tough in Dhaka, they were inconsistent, there was a lot of spin and I struggled. I was out of form and I had to get myself through that.”

Evans approached Rajshahi coach Lance Klusener with an unusual request for a man averaging a little more than 2.5. He wanted to be promoted up the order.

“I didn’t deserve it, I hadn’t scored any runs, but he was good enough to give me that chance,” he says. “And I feel like I repaid him.”

Quite.

Finally, after 10 days of chokes and false starts, Evans found ignition. It came against Victorians in the shape of a 62-ball 104 – his first T20 century. The shackles fell to the floor.

“I relaxed and it all comes flooding back,” he says.

^{Evans (second from right) with his Sultans team-mates}

In his following five innings he made a further 222 runs, including 70s against both Chittagong Vikings and Sylhet Sixers. The 2018 Evans was back – finding gaps, rotating the strike and punishing anything that loosely resembled a bad ball.

“It was a great experience to come through but it was tough,” he says, reflecting on those few days of self-searching, alone in a foreign hotel room.

“You try to keep yourself occupied but you can’t ignore what is going on inside your head. Your head is telling you you’re out of form and you’ve got another game coming up. You have to be brave and trust yourself to execute as you know you can.

“Even in the game where I got a hundred I started off fairly slowly. It was just about getting myself in a position whereby I could go and explode.”

Evans expects his stay in Bangladesh to prove to be a formative experience at a time when he is learning new lessons about himself and his game on a monthly basis, as he travels the planet on the crest of his own T20 wave.

Though not yet discussed regularly as a short-format option for England, his stats rival any of the current incumbents in the top order - in fact, they push many others into the shade – and there is good reason for Eoin Morgan to take a look prior to next year’s World Cup in Australia.

“I didn’t deserve it, I hadn’t scored any runs, but he was good enough to give me that chance”

A run in the PSL will do that cause no harm whatsoever.

“You get the feeling that this is one of the biggest tournaments in the world. Look at our squad and there’s quality all the way through. I’m really excited to be here,” he says.

The fact he will be joined by his wife Verity in Dubai for part of the tournament will only benefit Evans’ cause.

The pair married in the backend of last year – Evans’ jetsetting lifestyle hadn’t even been on the radar when the couple began planning their nuptials – and a brief honeymoon had to be curtailed by his participation in the BPL.

So what did Mrs Evans make of her husband of only a few weeks flying off by himself to Dhaka?

“You’ve got to marry the right girl,” he says. “We thought about her coming to Bangladesh but everyone said it’s not safe and you can’t go outside the hotel so there’s not much to do.

“We’re a good couple, we get on fairly well. We’re contracted now so there’s nothing she can do.

“We were planning on a honeymoon maybe in New Zealand, hoping that a couple of gigs might come along there and spend some time travelling. Off the back of the T20 Blast and then doing well in the APL and T10 it snowballed.”

A full winter will conclude with a month in the PSL before the county grind begins again in April.

“It feels a little like I’m piggy-backing from one tournament to another,” Evans says when asked whether he is starting to feel the onset of fatigue.

“I’m sure on Friday night (Multan’s opening game in Dubai), as soon as the crowd hits you, there’ll be no tiredness at all. The adrenaline kicks in, that’s what you’re here for, that’s what you live for.

“I’ve had a full winter and that’s what you always dream of. You dream of playing for England but this is the next best thing.

“You try not to make it an emotional rollercoaster but it can be. There are a lot of people putting a lot of money into it and they’re all emotional and they love the game. The circus delivers a lot and you compute everything, but at the end of the day you have to go out and hit a cricket ball.”