Rules of three: how England have dealt with a most thorny batting position

Moeen did not mind. He was fresh from 219 at three against Yorkshire, and moreover, he found the concept quite cool, even if he was unsure he was worthy of it.The feelings of inadequacy he harboured were based on the names you’d associate with the position. Sift through the greatest batters of all time and you’ll find plenty of No. 3s. From an English perspective, there exists a Mount Rushmore of Ken Barrington, Wally Hammond, Ted Dexter and Bill Edrich, who did it for a meaningful period of time (30 innings or more) and averaged over 50.”I didn’t really have… I don’t know what it is,” Moeen says, “but you know, Ricky Ponting, Hashim Amla, when they get hundreds and how they’re massive hundreds? That. It was short term, and I knew it was never going to be given to me.””Given” feels apt. Because No. 3s were chosen, and in the case of some of the names listed above, it was based on technical proficiency and mental strength. Ergo, the best batters at a country’s disposal. And yet here was Root, the man who would go on to become England’s all-time biggest Test run-scorer, glad to be rid of it.Root did it 20 more times after picking the role back up for the 2019 Ashes, but was clearly reluctant. So much so that one of Stokes’ first moves as captain was to ring-fence him at four. (The great irony, of course, is Root’s career-best 262 last year in Pakistan came at three, after Ben Duckett suffered an injury in the field, moving Pope and Root up a spot. Root did not even entertain the idea of staying there.)It feels instructive that Root and the rest of the “Fab Four” of Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson have all been on similar journeys with the No. 3 position. Only Williamson has stuck with it, while the rest have, well, “retreated” to the sanctuary of four at the behest of their teams. Three might offer gravitas, but in a stats-driven era, offering generational talents the best chance of scoring big and scoring often, against an older ball and more worn bowlers, is the value play.Five years on from that mid-game favour to Root, Moeen offered the same to Harry Brook during the third Ashes Test at Headingley. With Pope out injured, Brook had gone in earlier for the first innings – primarily to keep Root at four – and made an uncomfortable three runs. Here was another generational talent – the fastest to a thousand Test runs ever, by the way – being hamstrung by the job, at the first time of asking.The stand-in: Moeen Ali first batted at three as a favour to Joe Root, and finished his career batting there three times in the 2023 Ashes•AFP”Even before Brooky batted in the first innings at Headingley, I personally believed he’d be better at No. 5,” Moeen says. “Three, it wasn’t high for him because he’s not good enough, but like Root way back when, it was about getting more of him at No. 5.”In the second innings, Moeen himself only managed 5. Brook, however, back in the comfort of his usual spot, all but sealed the chase for England with 75, the first stage of hauling back Australia’s 2-0 lead. They completed that about turn at The Oval, with Moeen seeing out the series at No. 3.”Brook’s got really good technique, he’s good against fast bowling, good at taking the game on and assessing situations. But that doesn’t ensure he’s going to enjoy three. A lot of batting is mental. But three is more so.”

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There has been something of a generational shift among modern players. A societal awakening, a cultural acceptance, that it is okay to not be okay at three.Speak to players in county cricket and few covet the position. A straw poll of domestic batters unearths broadly consistent views. “If you grew up as an opener, the waiting is tough,” says one county veteran. “You’re often in early, on green county decks, the bowlers are up and about,” says another whose years at three were in service of trying to attract selectors’ glances. “It can be a bit of a mug’s game.”The No. 3 has always been a hybrid of opener and middle-order batter. In England, however, the accent has been more on the former, given the Dukes ball and the lavish movement available through the air and off the pitch.Trott embodied this. Resolute, impenetrable, risk-averse and with an ability to bat time. His average of 45.72 from 73 innings is the best of all Englishmen to do it in the last 35 years. And yet, the only better No. 3 than Trott in the last 55 years was one of the most revered stroke-makers the world over.David Gower wasn’t prepared for life at three but he grew to love it. “When you have a good day at three, it’s a great day,” he says•M McKeown/Getty Images”You’re going to tell me that I was very good?” David Gower asks, as much scepticism as hope in his voice.He was: 2619 of his 8231 runs came at three, as did eight of his 18 centuries. Only 56 of his 204 innings came at the position, yet only Dexter (51.81) did it as many times and averaged more than Gower’s 49.41.By his own admission, Gower treated one to six broadly the same, even with the differing wait times. By the time he was first entrusted with the role, during the 1981 Ashes, England’s Mount Rushmore was already in place. Not that he was bothered. All he saw was opportunity.”I suppose you do have to be aware of the history. But there are a lot of people who look at No. 3 and say that is your pivotal position. If I’m honest, I can’t say I was ever giving it too much thought growing up. The great thing about batting three or four is, you have normally got time to make big scores.”The first stanza of his Test career came in the middle order, in keeping with his spot at Leicestershire. And then, ahead of the fourth Test at Edgbaston of the ’81 Ashes, Mike Brearley asked Gower to step in at No. 3 after Bob Woolmer and then Brearley himself had failed. After a duck and 23, Gower was back to the middle with Chris Tavaré seeing out the remainder of the series at first drop.”I wasn’t really ready for it,” says Gower. “I’d played pretty much my whole Test career at five, and four and five for Leicestershire. I remember feeling slightly uneasy about it. Not prepared at all. As simple as it sounds, I was not used to putting the pads on straight away and getting out there.”A year later, Gower was back at three for the 1982-83 Ashes. He would finish as England’s top run-scorer with 441 runs, the start of eight years as a solution to one-down.

“Everything clicked. Whatever it was – whether I liked Australian conditions or the bowling… a year later one is more ready, confident. And instead of it going slightly wrong and therefore [feeling] unsure about it, the first innings of that series – a 72 at the WACA that should have been 150 – it felt perfect.”So began a deep love for three. The kind that sets Gower apart from other batters who have talked about the position. There is no mention of new-ball challenges, anxious waiting or crippling pressure. Just glory and liberation.”That longer, more successful, stint at three ended up defining me,” he says. “It gave me kudos. When you have a good day at three, it’s a great day. Because even if you’re piggybacking on a good opening partnership, you’re still amplifying the good news.”He highlights his 157 at The Oval in 1985 – against Australia – as his favourite knock at three. England needed to avoid defeat in that sixth and final Test to win the Ashes back. He walked in at 20 for 1 on the first day and went off as the second man out much later that same day.”Coming in relatively early on day one, with a little slice of luck as one looped off the shoulder of the bat and cleared the slips… and then, this most sublime day.”Everything slots into place. Nice pace, nice bounce. And you walk off with 157 to your name. That is your absolute pinnacle. Days like that, No. 3 was incredibly special and incredibly satisfying. The day that makes it all worthwhile.”Another aspect of Gower’s play that suited the position – by no means a prerequisite but certainly a desired trait – was his style. Being easy on the eye, particularly early on in an innings, has a calming influence on a dressing room. Pope’s frenzied starts, for instance, do not reassure those outside the current set-up.Gower’s 157 at The Oval in 1985 was a career highlight•Getty Images”You’d rather not be noted for your freneticism – when you bat, or in life,” Gower says. “With myself – and I always have to make this point – the perception was very different to reality.”If I appeared – to use the dreaded words ‘laid-back’ – part of that was a construct for my own benefit. Portraying an air of calm is a good thing, for your own sake and ultimately for the team’s sake. The days that you walk out and it all clicks straight away are few and far between, even for the greatest.”For Gower, the role was as much about the duty of assuming a starring role as the accolades that come with it.”Ideally, if you go No. 3, it’s like being promoted. You’re a prefect – you’re meant to be setting an example.”But I always have to believe that your own personal day is there to be treasured as well, as much as the contribution to the team. Those interviews when players say, ‘It’s all about the team.’ Oh f**k off. You’re allowed to be proud of yourself, especially if you’ve succeeded there.”

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Earlier this year British actor Tom Hardy revealed he was told by a producer he could never play Mr Darcy in , a role that subsequently went to Matthew Macfadyen. “All women have an image or a vision of what Mr Darcy looks like,” the conversation went. “And I’m afraid, Tom, you just aren’t it.”If you are willing to extrapolate the desired prim-and-properness of a Mr Darcy as translating to the desired prim-and-properness of a No. 3, then Mark Butcher was very much Hardy rather than Macfadyen.The game never truly bothered Butcher. “It’s not in my nature to stress about cricket,” he says. He admits to getting bored easily, and being prone to lapses in concentration.Yet no one in English Test history has three-ed more: 78 innings, five more than Trott, averaging 38.30. That rises to 42.32 when you isolate the 40 innings when he was given the role outright upon his recall in 2001. All six of his hundreds at three came during this stint, including the pièce de résistance – unbeaten 173 against Australia.173 and all that: Mark Butcher bats at No. 3 in the Headingley Test of 2001•Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images”That was basically a fluke, really,” says Butcher of his return to the XI. “Michael Vaughan, Mark Ramprakash and a whole number of others who’d have been in the side ahead of me were injured into that year’s Ashes. There were two spaces at three and five. I was delighted to be back playing, but the fact it was at three was cool.”Cool because Butcher was a rarity – a No. 3 fanboy. He did it growing up, only opening because it was the clearest route into the Surrey team. Opening the batting was his job, but three was his passion, fuelled by West Indies’ Larry Gomes who, ironically, was no specialist at three, playing just 19 of 60 Tests there.”Way back to the 1984 England versus West Indies Test series, Gomes was a hero of mine. He went under the radar with the likes of [Gordon] Greenidge, [Desmond] Haynes, and Viv Richards coming behind him. He batted three that series and made a mountain of runs in an understated way. He provided the stability for the lunatics to smash it around him. Because of Gomes, I grew up knowing there was a certain amount of respect to batting at three.”Underpinning this ambition was Butcher’s personality, which, despite being counter-intuitive to three, worked just fine. The stresses others associate with the role were perks to him.He loved the fact an innings could start second ball or on the second day. Even if it was the former, he preferred it to opening because those extra five minutes were “enough to get the karma right”. Most instructive was how he regarded the variety of uncertainty as “perfect”. He looked upon first-drop like a snooker player arriving to the table after a missed pot – a unique combination of ball placings and frame situations to be negotiated immediately. Or else.”It was always a different start,” says Butcher. “And as I’ve come to know myself better, not having the same thing to do all the time is a very, very handy thing for me.”If you think about that relatively logically – if you put someone who is naturally not the most disciplined in the world into a role where that is very much required, you get the best out of them in those circumstances.”In any venture I’ve done, I’ve found that if the emphasis is on something other than myself, I’m more likely to get a good result. You take on responsibility for other people rather than just yourself and it becomes an easier thing to do.”Nasser Hussain’s time at No. 3 was something of a rite of passage for him. And he didn’t enjoy waiting to bat. “I was a nervous watcher because I cared so much about getting runs”•Getty Images”That sounds very Butch,” laughs Nasser Hussain in the Lord’s media dining room when the above quote is read to him.”He had such a calm persona for a number three. The early wicket wouldn’t faze him. Even silly things – he used to refuse nightwatchman to stay at three. He’d say, ‘If I go in and get out, I can go out this evening. And if I don’t, I’m 20 not out.’ And he wasn’t a bullshitter. He meant it. He was perfect.”It was Hussain who gave Butcher his coveted position at No. 3 – because Hussain was done with it. The top order was constantly in its own state of flux amid the chaos of an ever-changing XI. Hussain, out of duty and pride, chained himself to three to offer stability. By the 2001 summer, he rightly untethered from it, and he would have done even if Butcher had not run with it.”Whether I did it or didn’t do it, did it well or did it badly, before I did it or after I did it, you always viewed it as such a key position,” Hussain says. “It suited me, and also taking responsibility. You’re captain, you bat – why don’t you take that responsibility? Look at the way Stokes does it. Don’t ask someone to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself. I’d have been asking someone else to do my job, which was at No. 3.”Hussain’s first go there famously came against India in 1996, following a second three-year gap from Test cricket. Umpire Darrell Hair neglected to spot a glove down the leg side, allowing him to register a career-resuscitating 128.Unlike Butcher, he had never thought about three. When informed that he would bat there for that Edgbaston Test, he was shocked. “I hadn’t batted at three, either for Essex or England previously. It was my way back in the side, but the worst part of my day was the wait to bat. I was a nervous watcher because I cared so much about getting runs.”Initially, three suited me – get your pads on. Often with Atherton, we’ve lost that wicket early,” he jokes. “So the waiting time was short. Three, then, suited my temperament.”Hussain went on to give it up, as part of what he describes as the usual bell curve on “the graph of being an England captain”; the initial boost of pride and the security of your position, before the pressure of the job takes hold and begins to weigh too heavy. “Suddenly the anxiety of waiting to bat becomes so low on your list that I slid down the order.”In 2000, a year before moving down for Butcher, Hussain came out fighting in the press during a particularly awful patch of form. Prior to the fourth Test against West Indies, he rallied against calls to give up the spot. Amid the usual underperforming-cricketer’s bluff of feeling technically fine (he was averaging 13 at that point of the series, which eventually dipped to 10.16) was mention of how, even in this grim patch, he deserved respect for his service at three.Jacob Bethell received plaudits for doing the job in New Zealand•Getty Images”After David Gower, there were nine or so people tried at number three,” Hussain said on the eve of that match at Headingley. “But four years ago, I stepped in and have got seven hundreds in 40 Test matches with an average of near 40.” It was actually 12 players tried at three in the period after Gower’s final Test there – the first of the 1990-91 Ashes.Twenty-five years removed, Hussain makes an important distinction. It was captaincy, rather than three, that was dragging him down. “Often in my era, you came in at six and you moved up the order. And hence, if you’re moving up the order, you should be getting better if you know what I mean?” he says. “I think that weighs on you a bit, that if you’re England’s No. 3, being ‘average’ just won’t cut it, either for you, in the team, in the public eye or in the press.”But honestly, it was my own expectancy of how I wanted to do well. I never viewed the position as the poisoned chalice.”It is at this point that Hussain asks for his numbers at three. He’s shocked to hear he did it 65 times across 40 Tests.”I don’t view myself as a No. 3. But actually, Jamo [Steve James] wrote in the about Ollie Pope, and there was a list of England No. 3s on it – and I was featured. And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, I was one of England’s No. 3s.'”He takes stock a second time when he hears he averaged 40.55 in the role. “If you look at those stats – and I very rarely piss in my own pocket – but I did quite well. It is now something I do look back on with pride that I did not let the position down. You can survive as captain – as I did, averaging 10 one year! – but I didn’t let that position down, really.”That Hussain, for all his status in the game, is humbled at how he performed there underlines the status of No. 3, at least in previous eras. Gower, similarly, was taken aback by just how good he was. “Right, so that’s five points better than normal,” he says of his 49.41. “Interesting… well I guess I should have another go?” he jokes, with a nod and a wink at the current Pope-Bethell predicament (which this England set-up does not regard as a predicament at all).”It probably takes something like this to put it all together,” Gower says, “put some figures on it, for me to go, ‘Oh, it actually wasn’t so bad, was it?'” Even Moeen, who signed off his Test career with three innings at three at the end of the 2023 Ashes – making one fifty and averaging 31 – wonders what might have been.”It was mainly done because I thought it was best for the team. But from a personal point of view, it was to prove to myself a little bit that I was still good enough to bat three. I left thinking ‘Man, if I was given that a bit more for a bit longer, I definitely could have done it.'”The ones that did it aren’t sure how well they did it. The ones that didn’t wish they had done it more. As for those doing it now? Perhaps it is healthier they do not know how much what they are doing used to once mean.