In the end, it was the kind thing to do. Zak Crawley knew the end was coming and, mixed in with the disappointment, there must have been deep down a sense of relief.
He can now work on his batting away from the glare of England and decide whether red-ball cricket is for him or another path lies ahead. At 28, he has many years left in the game.
For England, nothing screamed new era more than leaving out Crawley, the Bazball babe who could spectacularly light up Test matches, but summed up so many of their failings with his lack of reliability. When he was hot – such as stroking around Australia at Old Trafford in 2023 – he was dazzling, the embodiment of everything England wanted to be.
It just always bottomed out very quickly, and there was just not enough left to muster runs in the less glamorous surroundings of Division Two of the championship to save his place.
Had he scored runs for Kent, it would have been a very difficult decision. England would have been loathe to drop him as a player who worked hard and batted selflessly when others may have tried to protect their position. But to pick the same top seven as in Australia, on top of everyone keeping their jobs, would have been pretty difficult to defend.
Crawley made the decision easy for them with an average of 19 so far this season. Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith, two others told to score runs at the start of the season after a poor Ashes, and with more potential than Crawley, are averaging 83 and 63.
“I never like to think it is the end of the road for anyone,” said Rob Key, the director of cricket. “Zak has played well against some of the best bowlers in the world. He just has to go back, find form, find a game. He has played four years under intense scrutiny. He can now go back outside of the spotlight and develop his game. He knew it was coming. Zak over the last few years has been one of the best people to have around in that set-up in terms of character. He will take it in his stride and hopefully it will be the making of him.” The fact is, his form does not merit a place in the Kent side, let alone for England.
There is no way the reboot could have retained any credibility by picking Crawley and not choosing either of Emilio Gay or Ben McKinney to open.
In the past, the early summer has had no effect on England selection. In fact, during the Ashes tour it felt like a vast cultural difference to watch Australia place so much credence in Sheffield Shield runs before picking Jake Weatherald to open the batting.
A similar “bat off” had simply not happened in the McCullum-Key-Stokes era but the Ashes changed everything.
Gay will now find out what Crawley has had to handle for 64 Tests, which is a level of scrutiny that county cricket simply cannot prepare a player to face. His technique will be broken down, his weaknesses magnified and he will line up against pretty much the same attack for six innings across three Tests which is how top bowlers gain an edge and continually probe the same flaw. He will face a strong New Zealand seam attack too.
But it is a good time to make a start. England’s prescriptive approach has been found wanting. Gay should feel confident to play his way, not fit a pre-conceived model, which would have been the case a year ago.
The limitations of choice for England were clear in Ollie Robinson’s selection. They have gambled by trusting a player who has let them down three times in crunch series: back spasms in two Ashes series and in India two years ago.
He was so far out in the cold he could have been playing for Siberia rather than Sussex and he has not had to do much to earn his place back: just bowl at a consistent pace in county cricket and stay fit.
There is no question he has the talent, the opposite to Crawley really. Stick Crawley’s attitude in Robinson and England would have not had to search for two years for a new attack leader after the retirement of James Anderson.
He says captaincy at Sussex has changed him but Robinson has always been a persuasive talker. England are betting a lot on the fact that at 32 he is a new man and more robust. Plenty of fast bowlers improve with age, not many become more resilient physically.
There were so few other candidates. This is a squad that reflects the best available. Robinson is a smart and effective new-ball bowler with an edginess as well, which is needed at Test level. Can he last the whole race?
Crawley has been dropped before, in 2021, but then Bazball came along and he was in the right place at the right time. He stroked a superb hundred on the first day of the Pakistan series in Rawalpindi on Brendon McCullum’s first tour, a moment when everything came together for that England team. It should have been the start of something. Instead it was a harbinger of what was to come. Crawley started with 122, and averaged 26 across the rest of the series.