The Story
England’s young opener Keaton Jennings will be pretty nervous about his place for the home series against West Indies, which includes three Tests, as the chances of Surrey’s Mark Stoneman being handed over his maiden call-up grows in importance.
The Durham sensation has failed to overcome the challenge placed by South Africa’s bowling attack and had managed just 137 runs in eight innings so far, raising doubts over his potential.
This failure may act in the favour of the in-form Stoneman when England announce their squad for the series that begins with the historic day-night Test at Edgbaston next week – the first in England.
Mentor Confident of Stoneman’s Success
Stoneman is in remarkable form having scored 1,000 runs this county season at an average of 58.82 including three centuries. He was earlier in contention for a call up when Gary Balance was ruled out of the third Test against South Africa but lost out to Tom Westley.
This time around Stonemen might face some competition from Haseeb Hameed but may likely overshadow him, as the right hander overcame his dry patch of 20 innings without a fifty only recently which is quite underwhelming in comparison to the former’s superb form.
Former Australia batting coach Michael Di Venuto and head coach of Surrey has been one of the key men behind the development of Stoneman who previously played at Durham. Di Venuto brought him to Surrey during his move to the county as the head coach and since then, the left-hander has thrived quite well leading to becoming a contender for a place in the Test side.
“I’d obviously taken him under my wing a little bit up at Durham,” Di Venuto told The Independent recently.
“I knew how good he was and had seen how much he had grown so it was a great opportunity to bring him here when he was looking for a new challenge. He has fitted in really well and that is what I wanted. He’s an outstanding role model for the younger players in terms of performances on the field, obviously, but also in terms of character.
“He’s been a consistent run scorer for a few years now, and he’s really continued that in a new environment here. But I think he has also started to get some big scores, and particularly in the first innings of matches which put us in a strong position and has taken him to the next level.”