It seemed like a tailor-made situation to expose Dawid Malan’s perceived flaws. Chasing 192, England went 25-for-1 in the fourth over, on a Newlands course that was supposed to be slow and worn. Surely this would be the time his penchant for scoring slowly early in his innings would catch up with him, and his international T20 form would start to revert to average.
Instead, Malan drew his first ball through the square leg, passed his second to the third man, and threw his third over the thin leg for six. England’s notorious slow start was 14 versus 3.
Perhaps, then, the real test would come when he took on Tabraiz Shamsi, South Africa’s lively left arm wrist brace. Shamsi had thrown 14 balls at Malan in his T20 career, conceding just 12 runs and firing him once. The fact that Shamsi’s standard ball drifted away from a southpaw’s bat made him an obvious pitcher for Quinton de Kock to use, creating a pairing that should have suited South Africa.
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In fact, Malan swept back Shamsi’s first ball for four. In the second envelope he confronted him, he swept another four; in the third, he lifted it inside out over additional cover before dragging it over the middle.
Shamsi’s fourth over was the best of the lot for Malan: another reverse sweep for four, another booming drive over the cover ring and a violent crack directly over the pitcher’s head. Malan faced 14 balls from the pitcher that was meant to upset him the most and hit him for 38 runs.
There is no clearer sign that a hitter is in good shape than the covering shot is his most productive shot. There are no prizes for guessing that 30 of Malan’s 99 runs came in the area between coverage and additional coverage, 20 of them through sumptuous boundaries.
This was an entry to dispel any lingering doubts about his place. Throughout Malan’s career in T20I, there has been a feeling that despite all his success, his time with the team would be fleeting. With England rarely lining up a full-strength XI in T20I cricket, rather than prioritizing the 50+ year old team, it has been difficult to determine exactly where it stands within the setup.
In early 2019, he flew to the Caribbean hoping to “prove a point” in a T20I series against the West Indies, by which time he had made four fifties in five innings; he didn’t play a game. Later that year, after hitting only England’s second hundred in the format, his captain implicitly criticized him for not executing a last-ball bye to protect his average.
Earlier this year, he wrote in a column for Sky Sports: “I don’t know how you can be under pressure with numbers like [mine]”Right before three T20Is in South Africa; they gave him one game, out of position at No. 4. This summer, when he became the ICC’s No. 1 T20I hitter, he found himself criticized for his slow starts, even in Before From this series, many wondered if he would eventually come out of the side to accommodate Joe Root ahead of next year’s T20 World Cup in India.
But after his effort in Cape Town, there is little doubt about it: Malan has unequivocally shown that he is in England’s best T20I team. His average remains above 50, with his hit rate a tick below 150; it has gone from 50 in more than its 19 entries of which not. Having initially seemed like an outsider, drawing little praise from his teammates, he now has their full support.
Of course, there may still be challenges to come. Malan will most likely be wanted at the next IPL auction, and his game against spin and high pace will come under scrutiny at that tournament. There is still the best part of a year until the T20 World Cup, and as Jason Roy’s struggles in this series have shown, the vagaries of form can reach anyone.
And yet there remains a feeling that even if his form plummeted dramatically on the T20 circuit, he would manage to turn things around in an England jersey. Malan has cited the quality of the pitches and the amount of extra preparation he feels is being provided to him internationally as the reason behind his England record surpassing his numbers in national T20 cricket, and with this evidence it’s hard to question his judgment.
The clearest evidence yet of his best position in the locker room came immediately after he had pushed the winning run to the side of out to be 99, not out. “I didn’t know how it would turn out if I turned down the single,” he grinned at the post-game performance, Morgan looming over his shoulder. They were not the words of a man who feared for his place.
England’s players have repeatedly stated over the past few months that there is no more difficult task for a professional athlete than to make their way onto their white ball teams. It is a testament to Malan’s performances that he has managed to do just that.
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