There was something about Dan Lawrence’s pained groan at Edgbaston in England’s first innings of the third Test against Pakistan. For a split second it looked as if he might plunge his bat into the turf like some tormented Norse warrior. His stumps had already been flattened by his own hand, an attempt to run the ball down past point off Mohammad Imran had ended in him hacking an innocuous delivery emphatically on to them.
The stump microphone amplified Lawrence’s anguished reaction, the noise emanating from his mouth oscillating somewhere between the visceral howl of treading on an upturned plug and the disappointed yelp of missing the last train home. He had been bowled for 65 and another chance of a first Test century had gone begging. Test batters will tell you how they didn’t feel they “belonged” until they had made a century.
That the longer they had to wait to cross the Rubicon of three figures the more it weighed them down. Lawrence has played 17 Tests for England since his first call-up in 2021. It has been a career of fits and starts, the former through no fault of his own, the past five years have seen him bat at Nos 7, 6, 5, 4 and 3 as well as a doomed stint as a makeshift opener.
It’s those starts that will eat away at him though. Lawrence is a wonderful cricketer to watch, all quicksilver wrists and homespun swagger with the bat while his jerky, “judderman” off-spin bowling and razor-sharp fielding make him an asset to any side. In 2021, he made a plucky 73 in his very first Test dig on a spinning pitch in Galle.
He was left unbeaten on 81 not out at Edgbaston against New Zealand that summer. The following March he got within a few strokes of a century in Barbados but plinked an easy catch to cover in the last over of the day. Lawrence knows how to score centuries.
As a 17-year-old in 2015 he became the third-youngest player to make a County Championship century when he scored 161 for Essex against Surrey. Before his recall to the Test setup for the Pakistan series this summer he made five centuries in Division One of the championship including a double hundred against Hampshire. Against Pakistan he made half-centuries in each Test, at Edgbaston he was player of the match for his runs, two wickets and a sublime diving catch.
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