Crawley intent on carrying the attack to Kent

Jon Culley meets the Lancashire batsman whose outstanding form may give his team the edge

Self-belief is running high at Old Trafford, as it should in such buoyant times as these. Lancashire are progressing so well on all fronts that there is no saying Warwickshire's feat of winning three trophies in the same domestic season will not be trumped.

That possibility may disappear at Lord's today, of course, but it is a measure of how good Lancashire feel about themselves that John Crawley was able to look upon the possible absence of three Test players from the team to face Kent in the Benson and Hedges final without particular concern. "We have a very talented side and a very strong squad who can back up the injured players easily," he said. "I'm sure it will be a great day for us."

To be without players of the calibre of Jason Gallian, Peter Martin and, perhaps, Neil Fairbrother too would be too much for many counties. But last week Lancashire managed without Gallian, Martin and Michael Atherton to thrash Northamptonshire, the Championship leaders, by 233 runs. If a result such as that fails to generate confidence then nothing will.

If it is to last, however, they will need the depth of resources to which Crawley referred for it cannot be long before he too is lost to them. Indeed, as England work out how they might set themselves on an even keel again at Old Trafford 12 days from now, that time may be imminent. The 23-year-old batsman's performance against Allan Lamb's front-runners, where his brilliant 173 in the first innings built the platform from which Wasim Akram ultimately bowled Lancashire to victory, confirmed he is in tip-top form.

Crawley's Test initiation against South Africa last summer went poorly, but although his contribution to the series in Australia ended ignominiously, with a "pair" in the disastrous last Test in Perth, he does not feel that, as the youngest member of the England party, he acquitted himself badly. Not well enough, however, to play any part yet in the current series.

"I would be a fibber if I said I wasn't disappointed about not being in the England side," Crawley said. "But that is the view of the selectors.

"Michael [Atherton] has not really given me much indication of how I stand. The chairman has spoken to me once or twice and told me to keep going. He has said the make-up of the side does not give me a great deal of chance at the moment but that I've just got to keep scoring runs. I'm just trying to do what he is saying. I don't think I can be doing much wrong."

A first-class average of 65.42, with three centuries and four other scores above 50 in 15 innings, testifies to that, although the statistics inevitably tell only half the story. The other part is one of gritty determination in which, driven by a powerful ambition to fulfil his natural talent, he has buckled down to putting his game into good order.

"Australia is a very tough place to play cricket," he said. "You can learn a lot from playing a long tour out there and I certainly did that, about playing the game and about what sort of shape you've got to be in. I have benefited from it massively, I think.

"I didn't think, as the youngest member of the side, with little experience and coming in at a difficult time in Sydney, that I played especially badly, although I never played as well as I could.

"It is a pretty big gap between county cricket and Test cricket, but it is a similar size in any country in the world. I know I can play a lot better and, given the time and the confidence that will come with being selected, I'm sure I'll improve."

Commentators have applauded Crawley for playing straighter since his return from the tour, noting that a tendency to whip the ball across the line has been corrected. Interestingly, he does not see this as a compliment.

"It is not a fair comment to say that I'm playing straighter because I don't think I played anything really across the line," he said. "It is just that most of the balls seem to go square of the wicket on the leg side because a late break of the wrists sends them there; it is not a big, across-the-line swoosh, as some people like to make out.

"It has all been ironed out; the balls are going in the right sort of areas now. I'm not playing straighter, just playing with more of a full face of the bat. I'm still strong on the leg side but now I've opened up the other side of the wicket to myself."

With a coach of the calibre of David Lloyd, and a personal guru in the figure of his father, Frank - "always the person I've trusted most" - it would have been a surprise had a player who takes great joy from scoring runs not been eager to correct errors of technique.

Where he has been even more impressive, perhaps, is in the attention he has paid to his body. As an academic type not naturally inclined towards vigorous exercise, he was regarded as a well-rounded young man in more than one sense and not the most mobile in the field. But in three months between Australia and the domestic season he shed almost a stone and a half.

"I've trained very hard, getting help from a fitness organisation in London who have helped a lot of athletes and sportsmen. There was a lot of running and a lot of time on a machine called a Versaclimber, which is particularly good for cardiovascular stuff.

"In any fitness course, the hardest thing is to get fit in the first place. Once you have done that it is just a matter of training three or four times a week. When you are getting fit, it is every day. But I feel the benefits now in mobility and speed."

On two counts, then, he is a man on top of his game. But if he should thank anyone else, perhaps it is the Lancashire groundsman, Peter Marron. While other batsmen have struggled against the uncertainties of uneven bounce, Marron has turned out, in Crawley's view, "ideal cricket wickets".

All his three Championship centuries this year have been made at Old Trafford, plus another against Nottinghamshire in the Benson and Hedges. No wonder Crawley regrets that Lancashire do not now play again at their headquarters for a month. Then again, England do...