Phlegmatic Robert Key waits in the wings for another England chance

Profiles / Andrew Hughes / 10 July 2008 / Leave a Comment

As England take on South Africa, Robert Key continues to ply his trade on the county circuit as captain of Kent. But does the unathletic-looking yet talented batsman deserve another chance on the biggest stage?

There is a wonderful picture of Robert Key standing behind Mark Butcher during a Duncan Fletcher inspired practice drill. Butcher is alertness personified, bent to the task with busy enthusiasm. Key is looking into the middle distance, hands in his pockets, with all the chubby insouciance of a builder on a tea break. Unruffled, at ease in any circumstance, it was a character that impressed Steve Waugh during the 2002/03 Ashes tour, Key's first, abortive chance at an international career.

His second came eighteen months later, as Butcher's replacement. This time it seemed that he had grasped his Test place with two chubby hands as he pummelled a double hundred off Lara's West Indians. But establishing yourself at international level is a precarious business, a high wire act in which the merest breath of misfortune can send you tumbling towards the safety net. A year later Key was surplus to requirements, watching the Ashes epic like the rest of us, on television.

Bad luck took a hand, most notably when Michael Vaughan pulled out of the 2005 tour to Pakistan. Key would have been the ideal replacement, if he hadn't been recovering from shoulder surgery. Bad timing played its part, since his tentative steps onto the international stage coincided with the triumphant entrance of a rival opener, Andrew Strauss. But he had also acquired a reputation for faulty shot selection and lapses in concentration, a harsh charge but not without justification.

To be cast from the limelight into the outer shade of county cricket is an examination of a player's fortitude. There is no clearly marked path back to the promised land, just a long winding road of toil in the wilderness, which may, or may not, be rewarded. Small scraps have been thrown his way; the captaincy of England A and England Lions and his inclusion in a performance squad announced this April.

But it is also a reflection of Key's mental strength that he has continued to seek improvement, to add new dimensions to his game, without becoming disheartened or sinking into the comfort blanket of county cricket. Last winter, he took his family to Perth so that he could seek the guidance of the coach who helped Justin Langer blossom after the age of thirty. And, of course, he has taken the considerable gamble of accepting the captaincy of his county.

It could have been a disastrous career move. Captaincy is not for some, indeed, not for most. Discovering you are not cut out for it can be a painful and reputation-damaging experience. Instead, he has thrived. Last year, he guided a Kent side that lost seven first team regulars to safety in Division One. Much more than that, he took them to an unexpected Twenty20 triumph. His face beaming beneath the lid of the trophy was one of the photographs of the season. This year they are already Friends Provident Finalists and Twenty20 Quarter Finalists. A cricket obsessive, his willingness to pore over the minutiae of the game has helped him develop a keen tactical sense and his canny field placings are a feature of Kent's limited overs cricket. As a leader, his naturally calm demeanour encourages confidence.

So if England were to call on him again, how well would he fare? His batting style is not noticeably more attractive. There is the same crouch, the same protruding posterior and the same almost painfully side-on stance. But those clunking drives are more frequent and ring with the authority that age, experience and captaincy can bring.

He advances down the pitch to quick bowlers; he performs daring hoiks to long leg and generally cudgels the bowling with an aggression that was only fleetingly apparent four years ago. And it just so happens that England are crying out for a hard-driving, quick scoring, aggressive opener, in all forms of the game. If either Alastair Cook or Key's nemesis, Andrew Strauss, were to falter in the face of Steyn and co this summer, England could do a lot worse, before they turn to the Carberys and Comptons and the next generation, than give one more chance to the ruddy-cheeked fat boy from Kent. He might just surprise a few people.