Your place is not granted forever: Hussain to Crawley and Pope

Former England captain Nasser Hussain doesn’t want Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope to take their spots for granted in the Test set-up. The two batters have been mediocre of late but have managed to keep their place in the England squad for the three-match Test series in New Zealand, starting November 28.

In the three-match series in Pakistan, which England lost 2-1, Pope could only get 55 runs at an average of 11, with the highest score being 29. Meanwhile, Crawley did get 78 in one innings but could only manage 61 in the other four innings. Both these batters have been averaging in the low 30s this year.

“England have selected very well. The people in the last two years, random picks, have come in and they’ve all done very well and look very good cricketers," Hussain said on Sky Sports Cricket podcast.

“You’ve not looked at any of them and thought, ‘Well, what have England picked him for?’. They’ve all looked good picks and put in performances straight away. But will they ever go back? It can’t be a closed shop. 

“I would like to keep nudging Crawley and Pope to say, ‘Do you know what? Keaton Jennings is getting a few runs, or [Haseeb] Hameed is now getting a few, or Rory Burns got a lot over the summer. Your place is not granted forever."

Speaking about all-rounder Jacob Bethell, who has been picked despite averaging 25.44 with the bat and 96.14 with the ball, another former England skipper Michael Atherton said: “Going back to the Bethell selection, you can look at it two ways. You can say, this is the superstar kid of the future that they are absolutely betting the house on.

“They think he’s going to be a fantastic player, and they’ll be judged on that. And that may well be right. A lot of their selections have been really good. But you could also say then, well, if they’re having to pick somebody who averages 25 after 20 first-class games and hasn’t scored a first-class hundred, what else is there?"

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