Dawid Malan is trying his hand as a coach at Yorkshire as he faces up to the possibility that his England playing career is over.
The 36-year-old is contracted centrally until October but fell out of favour with England after last year’s dismal World Cup defence. Despite being the team’s leading run scorer, he was left out of the white-ball tour to the Caribbean that followed.
The phone has stayed silent since so Malan, while hoping for the best over selection for June’s T20 World Cup, is fearing the worst and planning for the future.
“I have no idea what they are thinking at the moment. We have got appraisals in 12 or 14 days so I’ll probably find out a bit more then. I will just take it as it comes,” Malan said.
“I am not looking too far ahead or wanting something that might not be there. If it is, it is, if it isn’t, it isn’t. I have made peace with that.
“I have a different path that I am looking at at the moment in terms of the last two or three years in my career and if things pop up, they pop up, and if they don’t, they don’t.
“Obviously I know they might want to go in a different direction. That’s absolutely fine. They’re entitled to do whatever they need to do that they think is the best way to move English cricket in the right direction.
“I still feel I’m good enough and young enough to do it but that’s out of my control, selection-wise.
“I’m going to do a bit of coaching in my off time and help the boys out two or three days a week. I’ll work with the firsts and seconds, whoever is around.
“It’s something I suggested because I’ve been thinking for a while about what I want to do after I’m finished.”
Malan remains the sole England batsman in the top 10 of the International Cricket Council’s one-day international rankings and is No 11 in the Twenty 20 ladder. Only Kevin Pietersen amongst English batsman has a higher average in the shortest format.
However, he has always been a lightning rod for criticism – usually over what is perceived to be his sluggish strike rate but which is actually superior to that of Ben Stokes in T20 internationals.
White-ball cricket is supposed to be his sole focus for Yorkshire this summer but if there is no England call that may change.
“I still absolutely love red-ball,” he said. “I made the decision last year looking at a schedule with the Hundred coming up and the international summer and the World Cup. There was so much cricket to play and I just felt I was in a car or a hotel the whole time. Something had to give and that was the decision I made.
“I’ve stuck with that but there’s part of me that wants to play and doesn’t feel done yet. If there’s nothing on the horizon moving forward then four-day cricket becomes an option for me again.”
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