Sometimes, all it takes is one shot. That’s all that is required to see why England have believed in Zak Crawley for so long, or to get him believing in himself again. Most famous among these was the first ball of the Ashes, cracked through cover for four to kickstart a riproaring first session and Crawley’s own high watermark as a Test cricketer, after his place had been in doubt in the build-up.

But against New Zealand, and against Matt Henry in particular, Crawley hasn’t even had the insurance of the odd pretty stroke to fall back on. His record against the right-armer reads: four innings batted, four dismissals, no runs scored. His record against New Zealand overall is down there with the worst of all time against one opposition. No one in Test history has batted more often in the top seven against one team and averaged lower than Crawley’s 10.15. It’s a run that has pushed his improving record back down into the range of the underwhelming.

You’ll know the raw numbers, but just to rehash. Crawley now averages 30.89 in Test cricket, and a lean Test in Hamilton could see that number fall below the likes of discarded openers Sam Robson and Rory Burns. Under Brendon McCullum, that number improves, but only slightly, to 32.47, by some way the lowest of any regular batter still in the set-up. Only Joe Root has played more Tests than Crawley under the new leadership, but five players have more centuries. England value wins and matchwinners, and have hailed Crawley as one such player. But he averages just 27 in Test wins, his numbers boosted by three tons and an average of 58 in draws.

Geoffrey Boycott: England cannot keep waiting for 'always unreliable' Zak Crawley to improve#NZvENG

READ ⬇️https://t.co/p57djQntpM

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 9, 2024

All of which will mean basically nothing to Stokes and McCullum. They have been happy to overlook Crawley’s raw numbers before and were vindicated in doing so. Crawley was under pressure at the start of the 2023 summer but was backed and went on to be England’s most consistent player across consecutive Test series against Australia and India. He averaged 47 across 10 Tests against the two best sides in the world and was dismissed in single figures just three times. The Zak Crawley Culture War had been won fair and square.

Since then, he has struggled. He started consecutive series against West Indies and Pakistan (Crawley missed the Sri Lanka Tests through injury) with scores in the 70s, but has otherwise failed to reach 30. Before Henry, Noman Ali had his number, also accounting for him in four consecutive innings. Again, that will likely concern McCullum and Stokes little, and there is some merit in the argument. Being spun out on turning Pakistan tracks and nibbled out on green New Zealand wickets doesn’t mean that, on flatter English and Australian pitches, Crawley won’t cash in again. But when next summer’s selection meeting rolls around, the conversation could well be different.

Cast your mind back to the last time Crawley was under significant pressure. Ahead of the 2023 Ashes, with Jonny Bairstow having recovered from a broken leg, the choice, essentially, was between Crawley and wicketkeeper Ben Foakes. At that point, Crawley was averaging 26 under McCullum and Foakes 39. But Crawley was a player they fancied and Foakes, a Bazball square peg who nevertheless did enough to contribute handily during his first year in the side, wasn’t.

Now it’s Jamie Smith they need to fit back in, with Jacob Bethell the challenger coming up strong. And England clearly really like him. “I know there was a bit made of Beth at No 3 given the lack of first-class cricket batting up the top of the order: should we bat him lower down and ease him into the trials and tribulations of Test cricket?” Stokes said after England’s series-sealing win in Wellington. “But me and Baz [­McCullum] don’t think like that. You’ve got a young lad with so much potential and talent, why not let him go out there and expose himself to Test cricket at its toughest?

“If it hadn’t gone well for him, that wouldn’t have changed our perception of him as a player. I was devastated for him to not get that three ­figures. But I walked in and I said to him: ‘It’s only four runs, isn’t it?’ And his response was: ‘Yeah, but it would have been flair if I smacked that through the covers to bring it up.’ That is class. I think he’s proved a lot to a lot of people and proved why we rate him so highly.”

Bethell’s emergence has largely led to questioning of the place of Ollie Pope, with the Warwickshire man looking at home at No.3 in a way that Pope hasn’t in recent times. Stokes has insisted that England’s batting reshuffle was simply down to having “a problem we needed to fix”, heading off any Bethell v Pope selection debates. Besides, Pope, down the order, has been England’s second most important batter this series, aiding Harry Brook in two match-turning first-innings stands.

But there’s another clue in Stokes’ praise of Bethell, in particular in why they weren’t afraid to bat him at first drop: “Me and Baz don’t think like that”. England’s policy has been to pick who they see as their most talented players, numbers be damned, and then arrange them in an order that makes some sort of sense. Given that, could Bethell - or even Jamie Smith if England choose to ensconce Pope down the order with the gloves where he seems suited - be a threat to Crawley at the top?

Neither is an opener by trade, and neither possesses the skillset of a traditional Test opener, but then that second part is also true of Crawley, who can dominate pace and spin when there is little sideways movement but struggles to battle through testing new-ball spells. It’s also true of Ben Duckett, who has only one answer to the question of whether to leave or to play.

It’s not yet clear cut. Crawley is still in credit, and Bethell’s start, while impressive, isn’t yet persuasive, his knocks amounting to two half-centuries when England were already well ahead in the game. One big score for either in the third Test could yet tilt the scales.

But before, those who have protested Crawley’s selection have done so because they see selection differently to how McCullum and Stokes do it, pointing to runs and averages when those things don’t matter to the England team hierarchy. England’s selection philosophy is clear. They pick who they feel are their best seven batters and then figure out the order later. With the emergence of Smith and Bethell, the difference now, for the first time, is that Crawley might just be slipping out of that group.

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