Dan Lawrence confident his approach will suit new role as England opener

Dan Lawrence is confident he “fits the mould” of an England Test opener in 2024, despite taking up the role just a handful of times in his first-class career.

It is nearly two-and-a-half years since Lawrence won the last of his 11 caps but he will finally get the chance to add to his tally in Wednesday’s series opener against Sri Lanka at Emirates Old Trafford.

Zak Crawley’s fractured finger has opened up a vacancy at the top of the order and, although Lawrence has headed up the innings on just seven occasions in a decade of county cricket, England have backed him as Ben Duckett’s new partner rather than drafting in a specialist.

Lawrence started out as an opener in his early days with Essex, and scored a half-century for Surrey in April in a rare return to the top, but has made his name as a free-flowing middle-order strokemaker.

In years gone by that might have marked him out as a poor fit to see off the new ball but England’s priorities have changed in the ‘Bazball’ era, with Crawley given licence to go after the bowlers from the word go.

“I think that’s the style of cricketer that Baz McCullum and Ben Stokes are generally after and my general way of going about it is to try and be quite aggressive,” said Lawrence.

“I always try and take the game on and score runs. I think I fit the mould more in that aspect. When I heard about Zak the first thing I thought about was, ‘am I going to open?’ and I found out very quickly that I was so I’ve had had a couple of weeks to get my head around that and get some practice in.

“Throughout my whole career I’ve played a certain brand of cricket and that has served me well so I’m just going to do the same thing. I’m just going to go out there and try to be as free as possible.

“I’ve had a couple of messages from Cooky (Sir Alastair Cook), who I played with for a number of years at Essex. I think my style of batting is going to be quite different to Cooky’s. I’ll try to do it my own way.”

England have made one other change to the side that completed a 3-0 series sweep over the West Indies last month, with Matthew Potts replacing injured skipper Stokes, who tore his hamstring playing in the Hundred.

Like Lawrence, Potts is back after a spell out of the side. After a breakout summer in 2022, the Durham seamer played just one Test last year, but gets the opportunity to make his case after being chosen ahead of Olly Stone.

Ollie Pope captains the team in Stokes’ absence, with Harry Brook’s status as an emerging leader underlined after he was promoted to vice-captain.

Stokes was with the team as they reported for duty in Manchester and is expected to be part of the dressing room throughout the three-match series.

“I think it’s obviously quite important for Ollie not to try and be Ben Stokes, because he’s obviously a very dominant character,” said Lawrence who captained Pope recently at London Spirit.

“Not having Stokesy is obviously a big loss for the team, but it’s another great opportunity for Ollie to step up and get some practice as captain and for us younger players to go out there and put on a performance.

“I’m sure Popey is going to have very similar messages to Stokesy. I think the general game plan is going to be exactly the same.”