Ben Duckett Almost Smashed Zak Crawley’s Head With A Cracking Shot-TGN

The Ashes on the line or not; a world-class pacer bowling or not; some juice in the wicket after being inserted to bat first on a pitch with moisture from the overnight rain or not. England opener Ben Duckett is one of the epitome players of the Bazball revolution.

Since January 2022, after which Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over, Duckett has scored at strike rate of over 90, which is the second-highest in the world for any batter in the world who has played at least 15 Test innings. With no surprises, the top on the list, ahead of Duckett, is Harry Brook with a strike rate of 91.

In this Ashes 2023 series, heading into the fifth and final Test at The Oval, Ben Duckett has been slightly below that his Bazball strike rate in the past year or more, 72 in the first four Tests.

The left-hander continued to bat in his attacking, aggressive, and imposing style against the Australian pace bowling trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood. He didn’t give much heed to the fact that England had been inserted in to bat first by Cummins because of the cloud cover and moisture in the surface, plus the Oval pitch being a bit bouncy and offering pace, as he swiftly moved at a little over run-a-ball for the first hour on Day 1.

VIDEO: Ben Duckett nearly takes out non-striker Zak Crawley with a ferocious shot

One of his shots in the first hour almost took out his batting partner Crawley at the non-striker end. In his typical fearless attitude, Ben Duckett skipped down the pitch to a length delivery from Hazlewood and smashed hit straight in the line in which Crawley was standing. Crawley was quick in his reflexes and just manage to dodge the thunderbolt coming from the batter’s end.

Watch the video here:

Australia skipper Pat Cummins won his first toss of the Ashes 2023 series and elected to bowl first.

Teams:

England (Playing XI): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, James Anderson

Australia (Playing XI): David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steven Smith, Travis Head, Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey(w), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins(c), Josh Hazlewood, Todd Murphy