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Follow UsBeing Dawid Malan is hard.
It’s not because he started his international career at 30 or had to endure intense scrutiny as a T20 batter, which fell just short of calling him a fraud despite his lofty credentials.
It is hard because he’s not the face you picture when someone mentions England. It’s because you are likelier to remember the sixes from Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler than Malan's unartistic pushes and nudges. It is because, despite what you remember, he would still average 61.52 with an SR of 96.13 in 21 ODI innings.
Being Dawid Malan is hard because he’s the beta in the team of alphas, a Mr. Consistent in a team of freaks.
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“Trying to break into this team, you either have to be a freak or be consistent, and that is what I have tried to do: put match-winning performances on the board,“ Malan said in the aftermath of his 127 in the recently concluded ODI series against New Zealand.
In that game, England put up a total of 311. Apart from Malan’s century that came as an opener, the next-best score was 36 (Jos Buttler). He batted for 40 overs in an innings where all other batters failed to be at home on a pitch where hitting through the line of the ball wasn’t straightforward.
It exemplified Malan’s role in the team - bat steady, bat long, and if possible, bat big so that others can boom and bang. His batting won’t be called the four-letter word beginning with ‘S’ by Rahul Dravid, but it’s definitely the nine-letter word beginning with ‘E’ - efficient.
Malan understands that he is all about consistency. That has got him to the 2023 ODI World Cup squad over a Goliath like Jason Roy. Not just that, this ‘Dawid’ also averages 21 more runs/dismissal than Roy, and the SR difference of 9 points isn’t a lot in comparison.
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Dawid Malan is a standout cricketer because his numbers in international white-ball cricket are much better than his domestic List A numbers.
There are two main reasons behind this aberration: he made his debut for England when he was 30 and reached his prime as a batter, and he had experienced quality bowling attacks and challenging conditions while playing in T20 leagues worldwide.
This allowed him to not only be unaffected by the international stage but also excel under the pressure of elite cricket, as being a marquee/overseas player in foreign leagues, he is expected to perform consistently for the team.
“It's amazing how playing in these [overseas] tournaments you are subjected to playing against different players, you are playing on different conditions, you are playing with the pressure of being an overseas player, you are playing with the pressure that you have to perform because…you are being given the money by a guy who sees you as the guy who has to win him the game... it’s dealing with these pressures, which is what international cricket is [about],” he said to Adam Collins on an episode of The Final Word Podcast, dated 15th December 2020.
Malan has been a regular of franchise cricket, so much so that apart from English domestic cricket, he has even played List A cricket in Bangladesh (from 2013 to 2015) for Prime Doleshwar Club in the Dhaka Premier League. From Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) to BBL (Big Bash League) and PSL (Pakistan Super League), you name a regional T20 competition, and chances are that you’ll find a batting record with the name DJ Malan there.
The world noticed him in the 2016-17 season of the PSL. His record might not be stellar there (Average of 29.88 & SR of 118.7 in 20 innings), but he credits the experience he gained there as critical for his growth as a batter.
“First year I played PSL, I remember playing against Islamabad United in the semi-finals. They had Shane Watson, Andre Russell, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Sami, Badree and Saeed Ajmal. Where else are you going to face that kind of attack unless you play international cricket.”
Malan scored 43 off 30 in that game but earned much more from his time in the league.
“So I think those experiences of me getting picked later helped me so much more in the sense that I had been through those failures.. imagine I played International cricket and learned what I did in the first year of PSL… probably would have taken me 3-4 or 5 years to get back into the England team…”
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Since Malan made his ODI debut in 2019, he is the only English batter in the top seven (who has played more than 10 games) to average above 60. The next best is Ben Stokes, who averages 51 in 25 innings. Along with being the most consistent batter for his team, he has also scored at almost run a ball (SR 96.13) in that period.
There’s no doubt about it that ODIs are currently his best format. He gets time to get his innings going, which isn’t available in T20s. And as shown in the shorter format, he also has the power game to dominate the spinners and pacers. Add to that the fact that he has the highest ball per dismissal record (64 balls/dismissal) amongst the English top seven since his debut, you have a near-perfect ODI batter made by machines.
His numbers against spin bowling are even better than pace, further substantiating his worthiness as an opener for Indian conditions. Although he has only batted in 5 innings in the subcontinent, his superior spin game reveals how important he will be for England in the upcoming World Cup.
England are going to India with a slightly undercooked middle order. Joe Root underperformed in the ODI series against New Zealand, and Stokes’s availability every game can be hampered by a vulnerable knee. The remaining middle-order batters (except Jos Buttler) - Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, and Moeen Ali - aren’t known to carry an entire innings on their shoulders, at least yet.
But Malan has done that quite often. In fact, his entire ODI game is built towards doing exactly that.
Thus, it won’t be wrong to say that to balance out the tempestuous freaks, England need the service of Mr. Consistent - Dawid Malan.
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“What he doesn’t have is a demonstrably big ego, and he so there to be taken for granted a little bit. And I think in his early iterations as an England cricketer, he was self-conscious, not sure of himself, and trying to convince himself of his own value and worth within a setup of a bunch of alphas who are all world stars..”
Phil Walker of the Wisden Cricket Monthly was spot on when he said the above on The Final World Podcast after England’s 3-1 victory against the Kiwis recently.
However, things are very different for him now.
He has been the best T20 batter in the world in ICC Rankings, a T20 World Cup winner, and the joint fastest to 1000 ODI runs for England alongside Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott.
This is Malan’s moment to ace the format he was always meant to do well in. The stage can’t get bigger than this. He has prepared hard for it, going around the globe to ready himself for the occasion. Above all, England would need him to perform as the fulcrum of their batting order.
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In England’s T20 World Cup winning photo in Australia last year, you’ll find it hard to locate Malan. He’s standing in the corner of the frame. If England defends its ODI crown successfully, you might still find Malan in the corner, even if he is the Player of The Tournament. It’s just who he is.
But this time, the smile might be even bigger and truer. The human and the cricketer within him would be at peace after achieving the biggest prize in Cricket for his team and proving that Dawid Johannes Malan belongs in this team of alphas despite not being one himself.
