Words of contentment were not reserved solely for the performance itself as Ben Duckett reflected on the career-high moment that sent England into today’s second Test against India with a 1-0 lead.
‘I’m looking over at her right now, and just want to give her a cuddle. I’ve definitely realised there’s more to life,’ said Duckett, a smile softening towards his 11-month-old daughter Margot, stood on the Headingley outfield, yards away from where he had been flaying the Indian bowling attack earlier that afternoon.
Fatherhood has coincided with an increased maturity in Duckett as a cricketer. Since becoming a dad, he has averaged 47.95 in a dozen Test appearances, a period that has also seen him cement his place as an England opener across all formats.
Now 30, he is approaching his peak as a batsman and consigning previous iterations of himself to history. As debate rages whether there is a better all-format batter on the planet, it is worth remembering that during his first incarnation as an international, he became the bete noire of English cricket, totting up as many misdemeanours on his charge sheet as runs in the scorebook.
There was the pint thrown over Jimmy Anderson’s head in December 2017 that resulted in him being stood down from an Ashes tour match in Perth and sent home.
He had thrown up on England coach Trevor Bayliss during an internal flight on the tour of India and Bangladesh a year earlier.
Ben Duckett is among the best all-format batters in the world and crowned his rise with a sublime 149 to lead England’s five-wicket win in the first Test against India last week
He struggled in his first taste of international cricket, and did not help himself by throwing up over England coach Trevor Bayliss on a flight
Duckett was sent home from the 2017-18 Ashes for pouring a pint over Jimmy Anderson’s head
Prior to that, he had twice been dropped from overseas assignments on fitness grounds – failing a body-fat test with England Under 19s in 2013 and overlooked for Northamptonshire’s pre-season trip in 2015 for failing ‘to meet fairly basic standards’.
A few months later, he was convicted of drink-driving after crashing into a ditch.
Duckett and discipline were not the most natural of bedfellows, but like his outstanding Test captain Ben Stokes – also thrown off an England Lions tour of Australia for behaviour issues – has undergone a maturing process on both sides of the boundary.
Like Stokes, he now has a chapter of his career titled Headingley Heroics following the second-innings 149 that laid the platform for the gripping five-wicket win over India last week. It was an effort that showed off all of Duckett’s best traits: positive intent, an unflustered temperament and rubber wrists.
Stokes, himself a player who favours the reverse sweep, even turned to his team-mate for advice on how to play the stroke in Leeds after struggling against Ravindra Jadeja. No wonder: Duckett’s dozen attempts at the stroke reaped 31 runs including the most impressive strike of the match, over extra cover for six.
It was his already his signature shot when David Ripley, who worked with him as both academy director and head coach at Northants, first saw him aged 11 at a festival in Shrewsbury. Cricket was in the blood – Duckett’s dad Graham played for Surrey’s second XI – but other family genes have clearly been inherited, as his mother Jayne was a lacrosse international.
People at Stowe School, where he attended after moving from Kent at the end of his primary years, remember him as a fine hockey player, renowned for his reverse stick hits – almost identical in technique to a reverse sweep with closeness to the ground and a wide circular arc to the hitting tool of choice. His ball-striking ability meant he was a county standard tennis player as a youth too.
His excellent hand-eye co-ordination and diminutive stature meant he emerged as a wicketkeeper under the guidance of Stowe’s head of cricket James Knott, son of the legendary gloveman Allan Knott, and it was partly for his duality that it was not until his 21st County Championship match that he was selected as an opener.
Duckett first perfected the reverse sweep as a youngster, and was helped by his hockey prowess
Duckett averages almost 48 in Tests since becoming a dad
Duckett now has six Test centuries and is among the first names on Ben Stokes’ teamsheet
Until mid-2015, Duckett had been chosen as a specialist batsman at No 7, slipped down a place when he took the gloves and never gone in higher than four.
‘He was always a good player of spin and I guess that is why he migrated a bit down the order, as well as not perhaps being technically ready for the new ball,’ reflects Ripley. ‘One of the greatest things about Ben, though, is that whatever job you give him, he’ll be pretty determined to make it work.’
So it proved. A broken knuckle for Richard Levi led to a shuffling of the deckchairs that first saw Kyle Coetzer and Rob Newton tried alongside Stephen Peters, before Duckett struck 134 from 151 balls and 88 against Lancashire in his second match in the role.
A flurry of 2,706 runs across all formats in 2016 led to him becoming only the 24th Northamptonshire player to win an England Test cap later that year. After winning the T20 Blast that summer, he said he wanted to stay with the club for life.
However, like Graeme Swann, another Steelback stalwart, a move to Nottinghamshire catalysed his international career.
‘Moving from one club to another as a young player, whether it’s right or wrong, is viewed as a sign of ambition and moving from a so-called unfashionable county to one that hosts Test cricket puts you in the spotlight,’ says Swann.
‘Duckett has thrived because he plays differently, doesn’t play by the rules and the validation of that is that this England team doesn’t like playing by the rules, so he’s a perfect fit.’
The theory went that a player like Duckett, who cannot bear to let deliveries go, would be toast to top-class bowlers in Test cricket.
Duckett barely ever leaves the ball – but that has not been as fatal for him as experts predicted
A move to Nottinghamshire was crucial in putting Duckett on a bigger stage for England to notice him
But his Nottinghamshire coach Peter Moores encouraged him to return to his natural instincts of putting bat to ball in 2019-20 during a full winter of work in Trent Bridge’s indoor nets.
‘Outside the off-stump, players have to be decisive in either defending or attacking. Ben is decisive. He attacks,’ says Moores. ‘And because he plays with a horizontal bat, it carries less danger than a player looking to run it down behind square on the off side with a vertical one.
‘The goal was to develop one game across three formats, turning the volume up and down depending on which one he was playing, but maintaining the same swing of the bat.
‘It sounds simple but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. In golf, the concept of smacking it down the middle of the fairway is simple. But if it was easy to execute, we’d all be off scratch.
‘Credit to him because he found the way to do it and last week’s run chase was a classic example of him being able to score at a really good rate without taking any risks. Ben didn’t have to go up a gear, just bat at his natural pace.’
Duckett’s desire to get better, Moores points out, includes him losing weight. ‘He was never unfit, he just got fitter and his fielding has gone through the roof,’ he says.
Indeed, often found in the hot spots of long-on or long-off in limited-overs cricket these days, he took a series-high five catches in England’s recent 3-0 Twenty20 win over West Indies.
Fate has also worked in his favour. Duckett was already playing Bazball at county level before it hit the nation’s conscience three years ago and when his natural style flourished, with a rapid hundred from No 5 for England Lions against South Africa that August, an interested observer took note. Brendon McCullum had popped down to Canterbury primarily to watch a then uncapped Harry Brook.
Duckett made a triumphant return to the Test team in late 2022 and has locked down his place ever since
Chris Woakes (right) knows just how hard it is to bowl at a player who never leaves the ball, and doesn’t often miss it either
The following month, Duckett’s sweeps were driving Pakistan to distraction in an away T20 series. By December 2022, he was back at the top of England’s Test team.
Now, he is the bane of bowlers, as Chris Woakes acknowledged this week, saying: ‘He’s obviously matured as a player. I think you see a lot of players come into international cricket.
‘I was one of those at a young age. You get a taste for it and you’re exposed a little bit, either technically or being not quite good enough. You go away, work on your game, and come back a better player. Ben’s one of those.
‘I don’t want to curse anything, but he doesn’t seem to miss too much on the stumps. I feel like he used to get bowled quite a lot, but he’s clearly in a good place and probably the form player in the world right now.’
