Dawid Malan is sitting pretty at the top of the ICC T20i batsman rankings, yet it could be said he represents something of a polarising figure. So why is this so, and more importantly, is it fair?
A Tale of Two Paces
Often in cricket, even as recently as the current T20i series against India, you hear of pitches as being two-paced. A similar description would be befitting of Dawid Malan’s batting.
Indeed, Malan very much plays in two phases. In Malan’s first 20 balls faced, he strikes at around 108. After the 30th, this jumps to somewhere near 190.
On a tangent, Malan presents the very reason why looking at a player’s overall strike rate in T20 can be a tricky task. On paper, Malan strikes at 145.72. In reality, this speed is rare for him. That is, of course, beside the point of this article, but just a bit of a fun quirk.
Evidently what makes Malan such an oddity is quite how broad a spectrum of aggression he casts. You do not have a player who will tee off from the word go, but you do have one who has regularly finished with a flurry on an international level. The question to ask, is whether or not this presents a problem.
A Powerplay Plodder
Batting at 3 comes with the acknowledgement that you may very quickly be assuming the role of an opener. In limited-overs cricket, this means it is now your job to maximise the Powerplay. This is where criticism of Malan begins. Being honest, striking at close to a run a ball is not exactly maximising the potential of the Powerplay. With fielding restrictions in place, you have a chance to pull the game firmly in your direction.
Such a problem is maximised when you compare Malan’s slow starts (108 SR) to the starts of England’s other common Powerplay actors. In the last five years, Jason Roy strikes at 147.10, Jonny Bairstow at 142.54, the forgotten man Alex Hales at 142.67, and Jos Buttler at an absolutely astonishing 153.10. Malan in the Powerplay presents something of an outlier for England’s rock n roll style.
The problem generated here is that of undue pressure on his batting partner. It’s not silly to suggest that one batsman trotting along slowly forces the other to take the initiative. In the worst case, this leads to a rash shot and another early wicket.
Where this issue gets interesting is when you look at the stats in action as opposed to on paper. For example, Malan was happy to take singles in the third T20i against India due to Jos Buttler going berserk at the other end. Here, Malan was not forcing Buttler to go big, so much as encouraging it. There exists an argument that Malan facilitates his partner to go all guns blazing.
Of course, to take this line you would have to argue that Malan is scoring slowly consciously. It’s time to test that.
Subcontinent Struggles
Over the last couple of years, Malan has more times than not pulled it out of the bag. After a slow start, he has gone racing ahead and on many an occasion, won games for England. It would be silly to completely disregard this. So far in India, a mere four games in all fairness, Malan has not looked able to do this.
Going back to the idea that Malan is deliberately playing to facilitate his partner, this has not always visibly been the case on the India tour. In fact, Malan has the look of a player struggling to put bat cleanly on ball. A good example was when England had the task of batting first in the second T20, Malan was looking to score and kept attempting a sweep shot. The shot was not materialising, and before long he was out.
In his (relatively short) international career so far, Malan has pulled off his magic in SENA countries. The subcontinent is always a test for players, and it can take some time to find ways to score on pitches which, to be frank, can act quite differently to what you are used to.
I suppose that it is in this area where a lot of the questions about Malan are raised. In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a T20 World Cup this year, and it happens to be in India. Naturally, worries form quickly that this is an early warning sign of struggles in India. This leads in nicely to the next point of interest.
He’s Just Not Joe Root
People (I) love Joe Root. So much so, that many people (I) would love a route for Joe back into the T20 team. The natural option here is to come in for Dawid Malan.
I think it would be fair to say that a strong foundation for this argument stems from the previous 2016 World Cup in India where Joe Root was handily England’s best player. Root put up astonishing figures, averaging 49.8 with a strike rate of 146.47. Going back to doubts around Malan in the subcontinent, Root presents something of a known quantity.
The real problem here stems from the fact that Joe Root hasn’t played all that much T20i cricket in the last couple of years, Malan has. Interestingly enough, Joe Root did play incredibly well in his brief stint in the 2020 Vitality Blast. Yet, it would be a very tough decision to make to swap out a man who has been a proven match-winner for the last couple of years in favour of man who hasn’t even been in recent squads.
Furthermore, you have to keep in mind the ECB focus on player welfare and rotation. Early messaging suggests that several players will be flying out to Australia relatively early for Ashes preparation. As Test captain, it’s not unlikely that they will want Joe Root there with the early squad. Realistically, given the possibility of bubbles and quarantine, this will impact how much England want Joe Root going to the World Cup. So far, the England setup has gone to great lengths to say that Root is still very much in contention. It’s simply a question of if they’re being totally truthful.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that this is not where a lot of talk around Malan comes from. People will always want Root in the team, it’s up to Malan to keep him out.
Heavy Competition at the Top, a Softer Middle
Similar to the Root problem, there exists a situation where nearly all of England’s batsmen see themselves as suiting the top of the order. For this discussion point, I’ll take the handy example of one Ben Stokes.
Ben Stokes can tee off, but Ben Stokes is quite simply not suited to coming in with 18 balls left. In the IPL, the Rajasthan Royals realised this. Now don’t get me wrong, they’re hardly perfect. They committed the cardinal sin of dropping Jos Buttler down the order, but here they might have been onto something. It gave Stokes licence to thrill with a bit more time ahead of him.
England’s middle order is left-hand heavy. There’s a strong argument for a right-handed batsman (did somebody say Sam Billings?) coming in for a bit of diversity. Often people say that the player here to go should be Sam Curran, but fundamentally that’s not likely to change much, given his most probable replacement is the leftie Moeen Ali.
Where Malan may have an issue, is if the Ben Stokes opener experiment continues in the IPL. If Stokes shows that he can bring his A Game coming in early, England would certainly be keen to transfer this.
At this point, you are probably wondering what this has to do with dropping the set and proven Dawid Malan. I refer you back to the Powerplay issue.
Ben Stokes is not always a lightning starter coming in at 6, but he is certainly much faster than Malan. In the IPL, he showed a great ability to score in the Powerplay, something which can win or lose games of T20 cricket. This is, in my opinion, the biggest drawback of having Dawid Malan in the team.
This is as of now, a largely theoretical conversation, but I would not be surprised to see it grow after the IPL.
Stats and Sample Size
After some more flowery arguments about style, speed, and popularity, a lot of doubts around Dawid Malan come from a statistical perspective.
Malan’s fantastic international average of 51.16 comes from a total of 22 innings. His domestic average of 33.24 comes from 221 innings.
Often the source of this type of problem is that the figures are skewed by early career numbers. This is not really the case with Malan. In the recent Big Bash League, he was relatively unremarkable. More interestingly given the current talk in India, is his record in the Pakistan Super League. In 20 innings at number 3, he averages 29.8 with a strike rate of 118.
This is the topic that causes division over Dawid Malan. In one camp, you have those who say that you can’t beat the inevitable monster that is regression to the mean. In the other, you have those who say that Malan’s record for England should give him a far longer rope than most, that he has a lot of credit in the bank.
At the end of the day, all that really matters is how England see it. In an ordinary year, it’s unlikely that this would become a point of intense conversation. This is not an ordinary year. In a World Cup year, it’s not unusual for teams to second guess themselves and begin to question their entire history of decisions. If Malan leaves India without a score, then goes on to struggle in the IPL, then there certainly will be a conversation about his place.
Coming to a Conclusion
For just one man, Malan sure does inspire a lot of chat around a lot of issues. As of yet, I’ve been reluctant to offer too much of a personal opinion amongst what was largely a summary of discourse. I am concerned by the presence of a player who forces England to play at half-speed in the Powerplay.
Of course, I’m not foolish enough to suggest that Malan is lucky and should be nowhere near the squad, he has put in a number of top-quality knocks. I simply fear that Malan’s style is immensely damaging if it does not come off. To be willing to potentially sacrifice 20 balls of the innings, a whopping sixth of the game, is incredibly risky business. For that 20 to come in the period where scoring quickly is easiest is even riskier.
Dawid Malan has a style that works when it works. What England have to worry about is quite how damaging it is when it does not.
