"He has learnt nothing in his 57 Tests" - England legend blasts Zak Crawley after another failure in IND vs ENG 2025 series

Former England cricketer Sir Geoffrey Boycott has declared that it's time to drop Zak Crawley from the side. This comes after the opener endured another failure in the third Test against India at Lord's Cricket Ground. Boycott stated that the Kent batter has hardly learned anything in his 57 Tests, as there have been too many similar dismissals.

After his composed 65 in the fourth innings of the series opener at Headingley, Crawley made scores of 19, 0, 18, and 22 in the next two matches. The 27-year-old's loose drive in the second innings at Lord's invited plenty of criticism as he threw away a start after making 22 runs.

In his column for The Telegraph, the former England opener stated that averaging 31 with five tons in 57 Tests hardly cuts it. He wrote:

"How many more chances is Crawley going to get? He has learned nothing in his 57 Tests. A waft in the first innings caught behind and a front-foot drive in the second innings to a wide sucker ball caught at gully. It was just a replay of too many of his dismissals. Time to go. Five hundreds and an average of 31 is not good enough."

Boycott also warned that Australia's pace trio will be licking their lips to bowl at Crawley in the Ashes series later this year, adding:

"Most opposition bowlers can’t wait to get their sweaters off to bowl at him. Can you imagine what the Australian seamers are thinking about this winter’s Ashes series? If Starc doesn’t get you, Hazlewood and Cummins will."

Crawley has featured in three Tests in Australia, doing so in the 2021-22 Ashes series. The youngster's only half-century came in Sydney when he struck 77 to help England pull off a draw.

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"Pope has done better for England than Crawley" - Sir Geoffrey Boycott

Sir Gaoffrey Boycott. (Credits: Getty)

With Ollie Pope's inconsistencies also under the scanner, Boycott claimed that the Surrey batter doesn't need to buy into the 'Bazball' narrative and must play according to the situation. He wrote:

"I hear and read comments about dropping Ollie Pope and replacing him with Jacob Bethell. Pope has done better for England than Crawley. Ollie was Stokes’ personal choice at three. At the time, number four was taken by Joe Root and number six by the captain so not many options. Early on the captain and coach sold Bazball to all the players and Ollie seems to have bought into it 100 per cent and is so keen to show he is a disciple. Perhaps he feels he must play positive and aggressively or he won’t keep his place."

Boycott continued:

"He needs to go back to basic batting which is to asses the situation and bat accordingly, not bat slavishly to an ideology or how he thinks the captain and coach want him to play. The coach Brendon McCullum is on record recently saying that England don’t talk about Bazball and need to finetune their approach to batting. So no excuses any more. Stop giving your wicket away to stupid over-aggressive shots because you can do better and England want more from you."

India and England will resume the battle for the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy on July 23 in the fourth Test in Manchester, with the hosts leading 2-1.

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Edited by Aditya Singh