It was only Division Two, but it was still some statement by Ben McKinney as he flew to an unbeaten 182 off only 191 balls against Gloucestershire before rain stopped play.
McKinney, 21, and wearing Durham’s No 9 shirt, has some extra-cover drive on him. Therefore, although he is a left-handed opening batsman, he can do the same sort of job for England as Zak Crawley – by driving opposing bowlers off their length if they try to pitch the ball up and swing it.
It was McKinney’s fourth first-class century for Durham, and fifth in all, to go with a pair of fifties – 66 and 68 – which he hit for England Lions against the England team last November at Lilac Hill, the game which was disgracefully allowed to pass as England’s sole warm-up game before the Ashes.
Being 6ft 7in, McKinney faces the occupational hazard of his head and eyes falling over to the off side and being vulnerable on leg stump. In this game he has been solving the problem by patting his bat on the ground between his feet, to stay tall, and taking guard on off stump to fast-medium bowlers over the wicket. Thus balanced, he timed the ball off his legs.
Such was his fluency in driving that McKinney kept piercing the home side’s off-side field whenever the ball was pitched up, and hit 18 fours in his hundred – this after Durham had been sent in. He shared an opening stand of 305 with his Durham captain Alex Lees, who has had an England Test career himself of 10 Tests, and who reached his 30th first-class hundred, and 21st for Durham.
McKinney’s innings also included three sixes. When Gloucestershire tried to stem the early flow by putting on a spinner, Ollie Price, McKinney put any pressure straight back on the bowler and slog-swept him for a vast maximum.
A big test will come when the ball is flying round his ears, which does not happen in Division Two. But when the ball was short, McKinney kept his hands high and hooked downwards, in the style of Sir Alastair Cook.
Composure is another attribute that McKinney shares with Cook. He was a footballer in his teens, on Sunderland’s books, so he is not a one-sport obsessive, as he told Nick Hoult in his interview last year with Telegraph Sport.
The tendency of such a tall batsman for letting his head and therefore his whole weight fall over to the off side will make Lord’s and its slope especially challenging for McKinney. England’s first Test this summer, against New Zealand on June 4, is at Lord’s.
But McKinney must have a chance of being selected, as Ben Duckett’s partner. He plays with bat and pad closer together than Crawley, which might not be hard, and does not go so hard at the ball, yet he has the same dismissive off and cover-drive. The call might yet be heard next month: “Come in, No 9, your time has come.”