Dawson happy to enter record books on debut

The Hampshire player was known as a batsman who could bowl, but being drafted into England’s side as a third spinner, could read much more than what the statistics say.

The 26-year-old was drafted into England’s World T20 squad earlier this year and after a successful stint in the Bangladesh Premier League, the spinner was drafted into England’s team for the fifth Test. It could be a good ploy by coach Trevor Bayliss as Dawson can operate as the third spinner and can offer variety too — slow left arm as against Moeen Ali’s off-spin and Adil Rashid’s leggies.

Bayliss had earlier praised Dawson’s mental strength and ability to think on his feet. Dawson did not have the best of starts in Chennai. The 26-year-old got a blow on the helmet off an Ishant Sharma delivery in the second ball he faced. Then he tried to flick Sharma but was a tad late and the ball thudded onto his thighs. With chatter around the bat, it wasn’t a pleasant first over for Dawson in Chennai.

However, he looked unfazed as he started to build his innings slowly. He timed his glance to an Umesh Yadav delivery with perfection and was quick to latch on to a carrom ball from Ravichandran Ashwin. He judged Amit Mishra’s length quickly to go back and cut with venom and England had a steady lower order batsman in sight.

A neat drive to long-on brought Dawson’s fifty on debut and his composure earned him a lot of praise and later he went on to make the highest score for England at No. 8 by a debutant. “It is obviously nice to do well on debut. It was interesting first few balls in Test cricket for me but I was pleased to get through them. I was always going to be up for it. You only make one Test debut. I was extremely excited and from a team point of view as well we want to finish on a high and we are in a fairly good position,” Dawson said.