Duckett eager to make his promise pay

The last couple of weeks, according to Ben Duckett, have seen “lots of dinners and celebrating”, to the extent that he has not had a moment to pause for thought about his imminent England debut.

That debut seemed closer the moment that England touched down in Bangladesh and, a couple of hours later, the team coach pulled into a Dhaka hotel under the sort of heavy security that will be a daily feature of the tour in response to a terrorist atrocity in the capital three months ago.

On Friday, Duckett seems set to replace Alex Hales in the first ODI against Bangladesh. Later in the month, he will battle another newcomer, Haseeb Hameed, for the right to open with Alastair Cook in the two Test matches.

The recent celebrations have been for a raft of end of season awards – from his club Northamptonshire, the Cricket Writers Club and the PCA, where he did an unprecedented double – but really they have been coming all summer.

It was a remarkable season which began with an unbeaten 282 against Sussex (only rain prevented him reaching 300 and he is quick to quip that “he blames the groundsman a bit, but I’ll take the red ink”) and which never let up: two more double-tons would follow, including 220* against Sri Lanka A for England Lions. There were another two Championship tons, as well as 163 against Pakistan A, a One-Day Cup century, and a starring role on Northants’ Finals Day fairytale in the NatWest Blast. In all, there were 2,706 reasons to celebrate.

“That innings against Sussex was something I didn’t believe I could do in my whole career,” Duckett reflected shortly after England’s arrival in Dhaka, “so to start the season off like that against a good attack did give me that belief that I could score big, …

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