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Perhaps the strangest thing about Ben Duckett’s dismissal was how long it took for the ball to fall very slowly from the grey sky of the Oval. Duckett was on 86 then and playing like a man who had just cleaned out the Monte Carlo casino, like some kind of vengeful goblin god, a cricketer in complete control of space, time, angles, the face of his bat.
He had scored 86 of England’s 140-1 at 5.35 runs per over. Milan Rathnayake was bowling from the Vauxhall End, bowling something that could probably best be described as a moderate right-arm ball. Duckett had bowled a few dot balls. Tired of that, he stepped away from the next one, fell back, waited, waited again, then walked towards it, trying to give it some run-up; the whole thing now looked a bit like a last, slightly dizzy game of badminton on the pitch before tea, only succeeding in getting the ball up in the air.
Related: Ollie Pope punishes Sri Lanka to put England in control
Duckett was already on his feet and turning to walk away when the ball was caught by Dinesh Chandimal. But it seemed fitting that there should be time, as the ball hung in the September gloom, to think about the real purpose of it all, to think about the batsman’s superego that tells you that wickets are sacred, that they are places of sacrifice and not indulgence, to consider the fundamental paradox of Duckett’s stroke.
For on the face of it, it was one of the most vigorous, creative and stimulating first innings you will see in an England Test. It must be added that Duckett was helped in this task by the Sri Lankan seamers who adopted two distinct modes of attack, wide and short, sometimes cleverly combining the two.
At the same time, Duckett also let his wicket slip. Poor execution is the mantra of this England team, not poor selection. That’s how I score. Back your talent. Be where you are. Find your neutral space. Put a lid on the squid. Eat pizza. Do the right thing.
But still. Before the Enlightenment, Duckett would have walked up the steps of the Oval, and he would have been shrugged, eyebrows raised, and promised a stern speech. And it was a moment that sits right at the edge that the Stokes-McCullum approach seeks to challenge, in a sport where there are hard orthodoxies and a certain self-flagellation about numbers.
Had Duckett scored 14 more runs, we might have been talking about one of the most memorable innings of the modern era. An 86 made it seem like an indulgence, a failure, a missed chance. Towards the end of the game, the loudest cheers of the day were for the shot that took Ollie Pope from 99 to 103, double figures to three, the great dividing line.
And yet, for those who were there, Duckett’s innings will remain a flash of colour on an otherwise grey day. It was thrilling to watch him take on the 5ft 10in Asitha Fernando, who bowls at 5ft 7in, surely one of the most compact clashes in Test history.
Duckett must be maddening to play. We know the not-out stats. But he has such perfect control of his bat face outside off-stump that it comes from a strength, the ability to run and slide and work the ball into those spaces around point.
The question is already: can he score points in Australia like that, because everything has to be measured against what might happen in Australia, even if what happens in Australia is always pretty much the same.
The obvious tactic on the bouncier pitches will be to nurture this habit, to set up the outfield players, to trust the extra pace and accuracy that will turn this reflexive strength into a serial weakness.
They did it a bit during the Ashes in England. The West Indies too this summer. Since Lord’s last year, Duckett has averaged 33 in Tests.
Does that figure matter? He is a natural attacking fly-half for this England era. In the absence of Jonny Bairstow, Duckett is practically Bazball’s spirit animal now, the most obviously invested of the senior players.
This is a cricketer having the time of his life, completely absorbed not just by the problems of batting pace but also by the optics, the attitude, the verbiage, the mate-chatter, the beard, the spectacles, the balcony atmosphere. One gets the impression that if he could, Duckett would live quite happily in Ben Stokes’ top pocket as a devoted cartoon mouse companion.
More to the point, his sense of adventure is a team game. His quick goal here couldn’t do anything for Dan Lawrence. But Duckett’s aggression helped Pope have a hugely important day in his summer, easing the tension in those restless feet.
The dismissal was a scandal that caused much noise. But sport is ultimately about moments. On a day when the autumn of red-ball cricket in England has perhaps never felt so specifically September, it was a rare note of colour and light.
