Injury permitting, Jamie Overton, is likely to feature in England’s T20 World Cup squad.
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Overton, 30, is uncapped in white-ball cricket and it is his batting as much as his bowling that has caught the attention of the England hierarchy.
Isn’t Jamie Overton more of a bowler?
Overton has long been on England’s radar. His raw speed, which can see him reach the 90mph mark, earned him an ODI call-up against Australia all the way back in 2013 before injuries hampered his progress; between 2013 and 2022, Overton never once played more than 10 first-class games in an English summer.
Overton famously scored 97 in what remains his sole Test appearance two years ago, but even then, his selection on that occasion was more on account of his bowling, having enjoyed an outstanding start to the 2022 season.
His move from Somerset to Surrey during 2020 coincided with an improvement in his batting. Overton scored his maiden first-class hundred in his penultimate Somerset appearance, before averaging more than 30 with the bat in both of Surrey’s title winning campaigns in 2022 and 2023. At Somerset, he averaged below 20 with the bat in first-class cricket.
Move to Surrey provides more opportunities
“Primarily, one of the main reasons why I wanted to move to Surrey was because I wanted more opportunities with the bat,” Overton told Wisden prior to the start of the season. And that has been what he’s got in London.
Overton had few chances to showcase his considerable hitting prowess at Taunton. In nine seasons with the county, he batted just 20 times in T20 cricket and only twice lined up in Somerset’s top seven.
At Surrey, though, Overton has developed into one of the most destructive hitters in the English game. He has only twice batted outside the top seven in Surrey’s star-studded line-up and since moving to The Oval, strikes at an eye-watering 176.92. His T20 Blast form naturally resulted in opportunities elsewhere, first in The Hundred and then overseas.
Why is he in the picture?
Overton has pressed forward his England case with every additional opportunity. He was the Player of the Tournament in last summer’s Hundred, striking at 182 for the Manchester Originals.
Over the winter, Overton had an excellent debut BBL campaign, averaging over 40 with the bat and below 20 with the ball for the Adelaide Strikers. And while Overton was muscling balls over Australian boundary ropes in December, England were on the receiving end of consecutive white-ball series defeats in the Caribbean.
They were second best in the T20I series and were it not for Phil Salt’s back-to-back centuries in the third and fourth games, it could have been much worse for Jos Buttler’s men. There was talk about blooding in new faces following the series and Ben Stokes’ withdrawal from contention only hastened the desire to look elsewhere after a dire year for the England limited overs set-up since winning the previous T20 World Cup Down Under in 2022.
Overton fits the bill for what England are after. He is a relentless six-hitter – only Andre Russell and Finn Allen boast a higher batting strike rate among players to have batted more than 50 times in T20 cricket – and is capable of chipping in with the occasional over with his sharp seam.
That said, Overton now faces a nervous wait. Overton missed Surrey’s most recent County Championship fixture due to a back injury. According to the Guardian, he is set to undergo further scans to determine the severity of his injury in a couple of weeks. Should he come through those unscathed, he might be the injection of energy England need to spice up a white-ball set-up that is in danger of becoming stale.
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