Dan Lawrence walked off at Lord’s on Saturday evening unbeaten on 50 from 66 balls, six fours and two sixes to his name, with England 177-7 in their second innings and 357 runs clear of Pakistan. It was his sixth Test half-century — and the first he has made batting where he thinks he belongs. Michael Vaughan’s response was to argue that England should stop treating the 29-year-old as a stopgap and give him a proper run in the side.
The former England captain’s case does not rest on one innings on a grey Saturday in St John’s Wood. It rests on the two years Lawrence spent outside the team, and on what he did with them.
Two years away, 788 runs, and a recall that made sense
Lawrence had not played a Test since September 2024, when England asked him to open against Sri Lanka after Zak Crawley fractured a finger. He was a middle-order batter being used as a top-order patch, and Vaughan questioned the logic at the time. Lawrence made 14 Test appearances in all before the axe fell.
What followed was the best domestic season of his career. Lawrence finished as the second-highest run-scorer in Division One of the County Championship with 788 runs at 65.66, including five centuries in eight matches for Surrey. When England named their first post-Ben Stokes Test squad on 6 August, with Joe Root beginning a second spell as captain, Lawrence was in it — and national selector Marcus North confirmed he would bat at six, filling the hole Stokes left behind. His off-spin also gives Root a sixth bowling option, a factor in the continuing debate over Shoaib Bashir’s place.
At Lord’s he has had to earn it in awkward conditions. England were bowled out for 290 in the first innings, Jamie Smith top-scoring with 61 and Jordan Cox making 55, with Mohammad Abbas taking 4-73 and Mohammad Ali 3-86. Pakistan then collapsed for 110 in 37.2 overs — Ollie Robinson 4-11, Jofra Archer 3-26, Azan Awais the only batter past 40 with 46. Abbas returned to remove three more England batters second time round, and Lawrence came in with the innings wobbling rather than cruising.
The selection squeeze Bethell’s knee is only postponing
England lead the series 1-0 after an innings victory at Headingley, and if they close out Lord’s — Pakistan would need to beat the highest successful fourth-innings chase at the ground, West Indies’ 344-1 in 1984 — the batting order will look settled. It is not.
Jacob Bethell was ruled out of the series with a right knee injury. Jordan Cox came in at three and made a half-century in the first innings. Ollie Pope, dropped for the final two Ashes Tests in Australia and replaced by Bethell at three, is back in the squad after 510 Championship runs at 56.66. That is four batters — Bethell, Cox, Pope, Lawrence — for what will realistically be two places once everyone is fit.
- Bethell: 22, already a white-ball centurion for England, and the batter the selectors chose over Pope in Australia.
- Cox: holding down No 3 on merit, with a fifty at Lord’s on debut in the role.
- Pope: 50-plus Tests, a keeping option, and heavy county runs behind him.
- Lawrence: the man in possession at six, in the best form of his career.
Vaughan’s point is that England have repeatedly solved that kind of puzzle by moving Lawrence rather than by dropping someone else — asking him to open, asking him to cover, asking him to wait. A batter who has been shuffled through four positions across 14 Tests has never had the run that a specialist No 6 needs.
What a settled No 6 is actually worth
England’s problem is structural, not personal. Stokes’s retirement removed a batter who guaranteed his own place and bowled 15 overs a day. The temptation is to replace him with whoever is hottest that month, and England have cycled through top-order combinations at a rate that has cost them continuity in each of the last three years.
Lawrence at six, with his off-spin, is the closest thing to a like-for-like structural fit England have. If he holds the position through this series, the squeeze falls on three and on the reserve batting slot instead — a cleaner problem to solve than reopening the middle order every time a player returns from injury.
Root’s second captaincy stint will be judged partly on whether he can impose that patience. Backing Lawrence for six Tests rather than two is the first test of it.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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