Zak Crawley’s 189 against Australia on day two showed exactly why Ben Stokes and England have kept faith with him at the top of the order

This was such an important innings for Zak Crawley’s England career and quite frankly he played beautifully.

This summer, he has got a lot of starts and that is not very Crawley-like. If you think of his career in both county and international cricket, it has either been feast or famine.

He tends to have spells which feature one hundred and nothing else whereas in this Ashes series he’s had quite a few starts, played pretty well and looked organised, but before Thursday he had passed 50 once and was averaging 32.

When you are playing well you want to convert and go big: it boosts your confidence, it keeps you in the side, and you know as an opener in England you can always get a good ‘un you nick off to next time you bat.

To be honest, Australia bowled poorly at him early on; from the first ball he gloved for four down the leg side, they were too straight. Everyone knows how strong he is off his pads and off his hip, how good he is on the pull and they fed him.

Zak Crawley’s 189 at Old Trafford was a hugely important innings in his England career

Australia bowled poorly at the Kent opener from the start but he made them pay for it 

The area to bowl to him when the ball is moving, is outside off-stump, on a fourth or fifth stump line because he goes hard at it.

There were still deliveries to which he played big booming drives and he has a slight technical issue when doing so as the bat face comes through towards mid-on from gully.

It’s why bowlers like New Zealand’s Tim Southee try to swing the ball away from him in the hope of locating that outside edge.

If a bowler swings it in, he has the perfect bat plane to clip it through the on-side, but his nemesis is the one that shapes away.

Australia just didn’t bowl enough there to exploit that vulnerability despite him driving balls on the up, and it meant they failed to build up pressure.

Fair play to him, though, because when they were on his pads, he put the bowlers away for four and when they dropped short he was quick to seize on it.

Crawley is also a player who hits through the line so well and he struck the ball imperiously once in due to a combination of a good Manchester pitch and how the Australians bowled to him.

Fair play to England also for sticking with him because they could easily have moved on.

Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes know Crawley is the type of player they want at the top of the order

Throughout his superb innings Crawley put away anything that was bowled too straight or on his pads

The crucial element has been that the England management team of Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes know he is the type of player they want at the top of the order.

They want someone to go out there and put opposition bowlers on the back foot. It’s not about smashing everything, but absorbing pressure, and transferring it onto your opponents, which is what Crawley can do.

It was summed up in the really smart way he went after Australia’s part-time spinner Travis Head: the moment he came into the attack it was bang, reverse sweep four, to go to his 50, bang, slog sweep six.

Suddenly, Head and his captain Pat Cummins were under immense pressure.

Later, during that huge partnership with Joe Root, the Australians completely lost the plot. There were fielders all over the place, there were five different plans in an over, four or five different captains out there waving their arms around and it showed even Australia can go ultra-defensive.

Here, they have been defensive from the off, from their selection to their tactics and it is as though they’re trying to stumble over the line to retain the urn.

Thursday also highlighted how good England were with the ball on the opening day and how sloppy Australia’s batting was.

The Australians had lots of starts in their innings but no one went on whereas Crawley did and so did Root.

That third-wicket partnership, particularly between lunch and tea, was spot on in tempo and exactly how McCullum and Stokes want the team to play. Not reckless, just clever, counter-attacking batting, and they were scoring at seven an over without taking stupid risks.

England also owed their dominant day to Moeen Ali. He played very sensibly, got under the short ball for a large period, swayed out of the way and when it was doing a bit early on he worked hard to set the platform for what was to come.

Moeen didn’t only volunteer to bat at first wicket down, he took the responsibility on of playing that role.

Moeen Ali played an important role in setting up the platform for what was to come for England

People might have thought he was going to go in and swing from the hip but don’t forget he averages 49 batting at three in first-class cricket.

This was not an experiment because for me he is a batter who bowls off-spin and because he has done everything for this England side it is easy for some to forget that.

He surged past 3,000 runs, to add to his 200 Test wickets, and when he retires he will probably think while he performed with the ball, he didn’t quite reach the levels of productivity he ought to have given his ability with the bat.

But on Thursday, both he and Crawley reminded people of exactly what they can do against the very best.