Former Boland player Dawid Malan, the England top-order batsman, is keen to prove a point when he makes his England return in the three-match Twenty20 International series against West Indies.
Malan, born in London, made his first class debut for Boland at the age of 18.
The 31-year-old last played for England in a Test against India in Birmingham in August 2018. Dropped from the Test squad subsequently, he has been absent from international cricket altogether. This despite 250 runs in the five T20Is he has played, at an average of 50 and strike-rate of 150.
Malan now has a chance to press his case again, with England having rested T20 regulars Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler for the West Indies games, in a bid to regulate their workload ahead of the Indian Premier League, ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 and the Ashes.
"You always want to play more and, when you average 50 with a strike-rate of 150, you do, probably selfishly, think you should be playing a bit more," Malan said ahead of the first T20I on Tuesday in Gros Islet. "It's never easy being dropped. It's your dream to play international cricket and you think it's gone at that time. It's been tough.”
Malan acknowledged that he probably didn’t make as many runs as he should have when he was part of the squad: 74 runs in five innings against Pakistan and India. Even so, he felt it was a little hard on him after a “breakthrough winter” in which he was England’s leading run-scorer in the 2017-18 Ashes with 383 runs at 42.55. Those runs included a maiden Test century.
"After that winter – the breakthrough winter – to have five innings and then be out of all three formats was pretty tough. You always have a few questions why.
"I definitely believe I'm good enough to play Test cricket. Five [six] innings ago in Test cricket, I passed fifty. In my last T20 innings, I passed fifty. I still believe I can play international cricket. I still believe I'm good enough. It's just when I get the opportunity to score runs to show the selectors and both captains, and people around the world, that I am good enough.”