Willey Inclined Towards Limited-Overs Future

English paceman David Willey is considering to give up attempts to play five-day cricket to become a specialist in white ball cricket. Willey is currently in Australia playing the Big Bash League (BBL) for the Perth Scorchers third season in a row.

“I think over the past couple of years, the way the scheduling is now it’s difficult to play enough four-day cricket to put your name in the frame for Test cricket. So, I’m at a real crossroads at the minute actually of whether I decide to pursue a career in Twenty20 cricket and one-day cricket and leave my dreams of Test cricket behind,” Willey remarked.

The scheduling argument placed by Willey has a valid reason with County Championship matches clashing with a tight schedule of England limited-overs cricket. However, the Championship matches in April and May with pitches offering seam bowling condition, a bowler of Willey’s calibre can press his Test claims.

More convincing perhaps will be the financial rewards that limited overs cricket has to offers giving opportunities to play in various T20 leagues.

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However, during the time of Trevor Bayliss as the head coach, England had already made a distinction between Test and limited overs specialist with the likes of Eoin Morgan, Jason Roy, Jos Buttler, Liam Plunkett and Alex Hales destined for a limited-overs future. Tymal Mills is another cricketer, who only plays T20 cricket due to injury issues.

“Certainly, two years ago I still had ambitions to play Test cricket,” Willey said. “But right now, I’m at a real crossroads and I’ll have some sleepless nights thinking about that,” Willey further stated.

Willey has played 31 ODIs and 16 T20Is for England, but even here there has been frustration. His reputation as a hard-hitting batsman has led Yorkshire to sent him at the top of the order, and he has two Twenty20 and two List A hundred to his name, but he finds himself in England’s tail end, so much so that he has only scored 202 international runs in both formats combined with a top score of 26.

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Even with the ball, Willey is typecasted as he is only effective with the new ball. He has only picked 17 wickets in the previous two seasons of BBL for Scorchers that reached the semi-finals in 2015-16 and claimed its third title in four years in 2016.

However, he will be available only for the first six matches before joining the English squad for the one-day series. The England team management is unlikely to object if Willey returns to play for Scorchers given that they reach the knockout stages during the break-in International cricket.

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