It was actually a vodka and lemonade, not that it really matters. Everyone assumes that the drink Ben Duckett tipped over James Anderson during the ill-fated 2017-18 Ashes tour – the drink that looked like ending his international career for good – was a pint of beer. To a large extent, I think, this is because Duckett basically looks like a pint drinker. You can almost see it nestled in his meaty hand: one arm resting on the wood-panelled bar, the other showing you a picture of a new sports car on his phone.
And for years this is how Duckett has existed in the imagination of the English cricketing public: as a kind of caricature, a known known, the guy with all the talent in the world but none of the common sense. The Perth incident – as well as a separate mishap in which a hungover Duckett vomited over coach Trevor Bayliss on a plane – left him persona non grata in English cricket, which feels rather quaint now we know about all the other things that were happening in English cricket at the time.
Then, of course, came the redemption arc: the recall for the tour to Pakistan, the scintillating run-a-ball century at Rawalpindi, the prodigal son returning to the fold. And yet for all Duckett seems to epitomise England’s new approach to Test cricket, there has also been a faint sense of impermanence there, the sense of a deal not quite sealed. After a couple of failures at Edgbaston, Kevin Pietersen recommended that Duckett be dropped to allow Ben Foakes to return to the side, with Jonny Bairstow or Ollie Pope being moved up to open.
It was a curious suggestion, and not just because Duckett had scored 182 literally two Tests earlier. But because you imagine that Pietersen might well have identified a little of his own condition in Duckett: the black sheep of English batting, the guy whose face never quite seemed to fit, the player whose dismissals always felt disproportionately decadent, the guy who really just needed a little love and a little indulgence. The sort of guy, in short, who could score 98 in an Ashes Test at Lord’s and still get chastised for his carelessness.
And this perhaps encapsulates the illusion of Duckett: a batter who still gets tagged as disposable, fey, inconsistent, despite reaching double figures in 13 of his 15 innings since returning to the red-ball side and essentially doing everything asked of him. The century in Rawalpindi: well, that was on a road. The 182 at Lord’s: well, that was against Ireland. Lots of bright little 60s and 80s. Time and again England have made it clear that Zak Crawley essentially has a job for life. No such guarantees have ever been offered to Duckett.
That broad-brush caricature often follows him to the crease. Crawley in full flow fits perfectly with English cricket’s narrow definition of elegance: all clean straight lines, long levers, classical grace. Duckett, by contrast, is a more stocky, blocky presence: a Tetris piece in human form, a guy who you could rotate 90 degrees in any direction and who would essentially look the same. All of which obscures the fact that for all his Twenty20 innovation, Duckett in red-ball cricket is a fundamentally orthodox batter: strong square of the wicket, strong through the off-side, a natural swing from a solid base.
What really distinguishes him is his intent. Traditional wisdom holds that the most important skill an opening batter can possess in English conditions is knowing when to leave the ball. Duckett, remarkably, has decided to discard this completely. Andrew Strauss left 28% of his deliveries in Test cricket. Duckett has left just 1%. Occasionally his compulsion to play at every ball can get him into trouble. But when the sun is out, the pitch is slow and the vibes are irresistible, he can be almost impossible to keep quiet.
His 98 contained just nine fours. Before long Australia gave up trying to tempt him outside off-stump and instead started bouncing him with six men stationed on the boundary. He rode his luck a little, top-edging Cameron Green over the slips, sweeping Nathan Lyon just short of the man at short fine-leg, miscuing countless pull shots harmlessly into space. But the space was only really there because he had created it. With a strike rate of 93 and an average of 63 since his return to the side, Duckett is statistically the fastest-scoring opener in the history of Test cricket.
And of course had he made those extra two runs, instead of hooking Josh Hazlewood tamely to deep square leg, perhaps the Duckett debate would be over for good. For now, he can simply savour the taste of another test passed, another hurdle cleared, another step taken. Duckett has made his way back from oblivion. He has done it against the spinners of Pakistan, the craftsmen of New Zealand and now the pacemen of Australia in the biggest series of them all. In more ways than one, Duckett continues to defy the caricature.
