Nasser Hussain wants an England batsman to be given another chance

England were thumped in the third Test by 203 runs and allowed India to make a comeback in the five-match series. Soon after the loss, the cricket experts pounced on the hosts as their batting frailties were exposed not for the first time. They were bundled out inside a session for the third time since 2016 and the failures of the openers Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings have come under the scanner now. However, former England captain Nasser Hussain wants England to give the latter another chance to prove himself in Southampton.

The left-handed batsman has looked completely out of sorts on his return to Test cricket and has only scored 94 runs in the five innings so far in the ongoing Test series. Moreover, his slip catching is also not up to the mark as he dropped a couple in the previous game. His failure has been putting pressure on the middle-order and to make matters worse, even Cook is struggling to score runs.

Personally, I’d give him another go

Nasser Hussain, in his column for Sky Sports, has backed Keaton Jennings to do well in Southampton and potentially, if he plays, it would be his last chance. With James Vince back in the squad, it is very much likely that England will prefer the in-form batsman at the top of the order to partner Cook. But Hussain feels Jennings deserves yet another chance.

“Keaton is now getting out in exactly the same way as he did in the first stage of his career. Personally, I’d give Jennings another go at the Ageas Bowl; five Test matches ago he was good enough to come back in and, being ‘old-school’, I would rather give a player one game too many than one too few. If the selectors drop Jennings twice in as many years, he’ll find it very difficult to come back again,” he wrote.

Hussain also showered praises on Vince for earning a Test recall by scoring a huge amount of runs in the County circuit after being dropped after New Zealand series earlier this year. “Somewhere deep inside James Vince, there is an international Test match batsman. There’s no doubt he’s an eye-catching, fluent player who has done exactly what the selectors have asked of him of late – which is go back to county cricket and score runs,” the 50-year-old further added.

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