Ben Duckett’s century held England’s first innings together in response to Pakistan’s 366 all out on day two of the second Test in Multan; and after the end of day’s play, the England opener shared his thoughts on his learning curve while batting against Ravichandran Ashwin on the Indian pitches.
Duckett’s 114, which was the only shining light in England’s total of 239 for 6, put the visitors within 127 runs of the home team’s total.But off-spinner Sajid Ali made full use of the turn in the track and took four wickets (4 for 86) to put England on the back foot.
But Duckett’s counter-attacking knock kept producing runs from the other end after his 73-run opening partnership with Zak Crawley (27) and the subsequent 86-run stand for the fourth wicket with Joe Root (34).
Asking Duckett about his transformation as a batsman, a reporter mentioned his struggle during his debut series in Bangladesh in 2016 and how he “couldn’t buy a run”.
Duckett’s reply invited a few laughs before he elaborated.
“I did get 60 in one of the two Test matches, so that’s slightly harsh,” he said to begin with. “I was slightly young, scored a lot of runs batting in English conditions and it’s incredibly difficult playing in the subcontinent when you haven’t grown up playing in those conditions.”
The England batter went on to add how playing in India against Ravichandran Ashwin has helped him. Duckett’s ploy of using his feet more against Sajid in Multan was possibly a leaf out of that learning book.
“I scored 60 in Bangladesh and then went to India and got out to, in my opinion, the best bowler to left-handers — Ravi Ashwin. It was a great learning curve for me,” said Duckett.
On England’s tour of India earlier this year, Duckett scored 343 runs in five Tests, which included a century. India came back after losing the first Test to win the series 4-1.
In Multan on Wednesday, Duckett’s century also added his name in the history books as the fastest to complete 2000 Test runs in terms of balls faced.
