Keaton Jennings can count himself unlucky, given history of success in Asia

JAMES COYNE: England look like they want to move on in Test cricket with the new generation of younger batsmen

Poor Keaton Jennings, without doubt one of the nicest men in professional cricket, has an unfortunate way of eliciting some very strong reactions. And don’t we live in a world of binary opinion right now.

The suggestion that he might have been a bit unfortunate not to be named in England’s touring party for Sri Lanka – he was in the initial one in March, before the tour was aborted due to Covid-19 – met with the customary incredulity from so many on social media.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, sure, and it’s certainly true that Keaton Jennings rarely looks a world-beater. But it’s wilfully obscure to overlook the record of a man with a Test hundred each in India and Sri Lanka – precisely the two countries England are touring over the next few months.

Even with the absence of one first-choice opener in Rory Burns, who is missing the Sri Lanka Tests to attend the birth of his first child, Jennings hasn’t made the cut. Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley look locked in to open the batting.

When Jennings was chosen back in March for the original tour, it was presumably as cover for the younger, more exciting options mentioned above, who had just succeeded in an impressive 3-1 win in South Africa. The national selector Ed Smith said at the time that England were “fortunate to have Keaton to supply depth and experience in those conditions”.

In the meantime, Jennings has been leapfrogged by Dan Lawrence, who had a superb tour of Australia with England Lions last winter, and almost certainly has more potential to succeed across more formats and conditions, and much more expansively. Jennings didn’t have a blinding Bob Willis Trophy either, but then the sample size over half a season was hardly bounteous.

It’s possibly also a factor that Jonny Bairstow’s eye-catching recent limited-overs form, combined with the Test century he made at No.3 in Colombo in 2018/19, also nudged Jennings out.

Before the inevitable avalanche of incredulity that I can be seriously pushing the cause of a batsman who looks more leaden-footed than the majority in English first-class cricket, please consider a few caveats…

^{Keaton Jennings last played for England in West Indies at the start of 2019}

No one can be seriously suggesting Jennings as an option outside of Asia; in fact, I’d go as far as to say the case is virtually proven that Jennings should never play for England in most countries again. When he is struggling against the swinging and seaming ball, he looks as bad as any England batsman in living memory.

But if England were picking mainly on conditions, they might have retained Jennings, at least as cover, on the basis that he has a proven and not-too distant track record in Asian conditions, while Sibley has question marks against his name when it comes to scoring against spin. As for Crawley, who is going to drop someone who scored 267 in his last Test innings?

Just before the 2019 Ashes, I spoke to Andrew Strauss, the previous managing director of England cricket, and now chairman of the ECB cricket committee. He identified the subect of picking differently for home and away as the biggest unresolved issue of his time as managing director.

“I think – in fact, I know – the reason we haven’t done well away from home is that we haven’t been adaptable enough both in our thinking – the teams we pick, the development of skills, the gameplan itself…

England name squad for Sri Lanka Test series

“The skills required to win a game in the UAE, or Sri Lanka, or Australia, or South Africa, are completely different. And if you’re still playing the same XI every time, or the same style of cricket, then guess what: you’re probably not going to win.

“This is probably my regret [from my time as managing director]. We separated white-ball cricket away from red-ball. What I think they’re still working through, and I think we saw it in the winter [beating Sri Lanka 3-0], is how to separate playing at home from playing away, to say ‘those are two completely different things’.”

Keaton Jennings is perhaps the most extreme illustration of that dichotomy. How else to define someone who scored 112 on Test debut against Ashwin and Jadeja in 2016, or set up the surprise 3-0 win in Sri Lanka in 2018/19 with 46 to keep England in the game, then 146 not out to ram home the advantage.

He tailed away a bit over the rest of that tour, but did enough to keep his place for the West Indies. There Jennings reverted sadly to type against quick bowling on quick surfaces, pushing out and fending the ball to slip or gully.

Rotating because of fatigue and workload is one thing. The reality is that picking on conditions is fraught with difficulty. For all the talk of ‘total cricket’, no international team is comfortable rotating a performing player out when they move on to a place where it is perceived they will struggle; that just seems too much like dropping someone. That reluctance seems to apply more to batsmen than bowlers, proving that it really is a batsman’s game after all…

^{Jennings has Test centuries in India and Sri Lanka (pictured)}

Plus, home boards have control over pitch preparation, so what happens if conditions aren’t as you previously define them? This happened on the last tour of the Caribbean when, after years of grim, docile pitches, Cricket West Indies sprinkled them with magic dust to turn them back into the unpredictable trampolines of yore. Similarly, if Sri Lanka inject any pace at all this time, Jennings might have been toast.

And what if a player makes huge strides forward in advance of a tour? You can bet your bottom dollar, knowing Sibley’s work ethic, that he’s been doing everything he can to work on his game leading into this tour. He will have been training hard in the heated tent at Loughborough; I am told that Jennings has not been there.

That preparation, by the way, will be even more crucial than usual, as England won’t be getting any formal practice matches during their 10-day quarantine in Hambantota before the two Tests, both in Galle.

All the more reason, you’d have thought, to consider Jennings – a Galle centurion – among the seven replacements going on the trip, positions needed to guard against both injuries and concussion substitutions, but also in case of a positive test for Covid-19.

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But the one frontline batsman among that group is James Bracey, who shadowed the Test squad during the bio-bubble series in England last summer. Bracey looks more technically rounded, if a player who, before the Lions tour last winter, had played almost all his cricket at home. (And, unless he plays, England surely won’t have a left-hander in the top six.)

Smith acknowledged that the ECB have considered the lack of Lions tours since last winter in Australia – when Jennings captained them to a win over Australia A, as it happens – and so “development opportunity” is available on this Sri Lanka tour for youngish players to work on their game in overseas conditions.

None of those seven replacements are older than 27, and most are in their early twenties. Jennings is 28. It appears England have done something slightly different than just pick the next seven players for the Test squad.

So is it that the selectors have decided there are better options right now to succeed in Sri Lanka and India than Keaton Jennings? Or is it that they want to give more promising players time to bed in for an international career? We will find out the wisdom of their decision over the next few months. If things go well for England, Keaton Jennings’ Test career really will be over.

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