Making_Splinters wrote: I don't see him ever succeeding at Test level full stop. It's just the same innings again and again, he's shown zero capacity for improvement in his career so far. Compare that with Malan who had technical issues when he first came into the side which South Africa exploited, he went away and worked on them then in his next series finished as England's top run scorer against a very good Australian attack
Can a batsman work on luck, or is it just a natural consequence? Praising Malan as a gritty guy who has worked hard to make runs seems a bit of a scorecard judgement to me. For large parts of his innings where he made contributions, he straight up benefited from a lot of luck going his way. All of these long innings are filled with examples of him getting frustrated and taking on false shots, he just got away with them. If you were to condense his innings down and showed them to people without knowledge of his scores, I think people would be more inclined to think he was a poor player.
There are certainly two large areas he has struggled with without that being reflected in his stats. The first was Lyon, who he never really looked convinced with. In fact, for large spells Lyon dominated him, quite how he didnt get his wicket in a lot of tests is beyond me. The second is the short ball, despite flat and slow pitches, if you were to count how many false pulls, hooks or gloves Malan misplaced under the bouncers, youd think any fast paced bowler would back themselves to get him out.
James Vince's tests at Brisbane and Perth rather sum up the difference between the two. At Brisbane, Vince played very well, was set for a hundred , then Lyon produces a bit of world class fielding with the perfect pick up, throw and release, and Vince goes. At Perth, in challenging conditions, he was all set again to make a big score then got what has to go down as one of the most unplayable balls in the history of the game from Starc. Not even Bradman in his prime is getting near a ball that seams off a decent length enough to change a wide of leg stump line into a hitting the top of off one. Nothing Vince or anyone could have done.
In contrast, Malan started the series by taking on a wild attempt at a short ball and bottom edging just short of Paine. He kept on taking it on till he eventually pulled to a fielder. At Perth, Warner missed a run out. Bancroft dropped him at short leg. When Lyon was doing him over, Malan started trying to use his feet, and was damn lucky; he squirted one edge to Bancroft that was catchable, but Bancroft misunderstood it being hit hard and was too busy covering up. Bancroft then missed an easy run out himself. Malan then top edged a few short balls he had no control over. He was dropped in the slips too. That second innings in Perth was probably his most faultless, but even then as Vince was getting unplayable balls, Malan kept on seeing his own whistle past his rather uncontrolled prodded edges. Think in the first innings 140 he also got one of those leg stump umpires calls where only 49.9% of the ball was hitting stump; ie one of those where the technology confirms 100% in its error margin he was out, but the rules for some reason put the margin higher.
Sydney was another test where Malan made a 50, but he was dropped at least once by memory. Cummins I think gave him a thunderous short ball that knocked him over. He wore a few he picked late, and I think he gloved one for four just passed the diving keeper, and looped one glove desperately short of the close fielder. He also benefitted from another run out going his way when Paine's throw to Lyon was way off target with him short of his ground.