Former England spinner Graeme Swann has come out in support of the underfire English No.3 in T20I cricket, Dawid Malan after the southpaw endured a poor run in the recently-concluded T20I series in India.
Dawid Malan, who had come into the five-match T20I series against India riding high on confidence thanks to his insane consistency and his numero-uno spot in the T20I rankings, saw his reputation take a beating as he struggled against the spinners.
The English No.3 managed a mere 148 runs in his five outings at an average of 37 and at a poor strike rate of just over 120 with three out of four dismissals coming against spin.
He did smash a 46-ball 68 in the series decider but most of those runs came against the seamers during the powerplay and once the spinners got into the thick of things, he failed to score at the same pace.
With the T20I World Cup set to take place in India and his struggles against spin or slow bowling exposed, Malan has come in for a lot of criticism from fans and pundits, who have called for the inclusion of Joe Root in the team ahead of the southpaw.
However, Graeme Swann feels that fans need to appreciate the skills and achievements of Dawid Malan and not overtly criticize him after one poor series.
“We’ve got a player who has got to world no. 1 in the format in a short amount of time, averaging 50 plus. He’s never played in India before, and then after two games, people are slating him,” Metro.co.uk quoted Graeme Swann.
“Honestly, it makes me shake my head sometimes. We need to appreciate what we’ve got in Dawid Malan. We’ve got someone who’s the world no. 1; he’s doing everything right. Yes, he didn’t have a brilliant series, but he scored runs in the last game (68 off 46 balls) and batted brilliantly. So it makes me shake my head, to be honest. I definitely don’t buy into it.” added Swann.
Despite a poor series, Dawid Malan managed to retain his No.1 spot in the T20I rankings for batsmen. In 24 T20Is, Malan has 1003 runs against his name at an average of 50.15 and a strike rate of 144.32 which includes 10 50s and one hundred.
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