England opener Ben Duckett recently said how the spinners had initially troubled him, especially India’s veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, on subcontinent pitches. Though an established performer on his own pitches, Duckett revealed that it took a long time for him to get accustomed to the turning tracks of the subcontinent in his career.

Ben Duckett batted with growing maturity as a batter of foreign conditions against Pakistan for England recently. However, against Pakistan’s first-innings score of 366, Duckett and Zak Crawley made 73 runs for the opening wicket, but Duckett carried on with an important stand of 86 with third-wicket man Joe Root, scoring a confident knock of 114 off 129 balls that included 16 boundaries.

His fiery innings came to an end and triggered a mini-collapse after off-spinner Sajid Khan dismissed him on Day 2, as England lost four wickets quickly, sliding from 211-2 to 225-6. England ended the day at 239/6 at the Multan Cricket Stadium, failing to cope with Sajid’s sharp spin, despite Pakistan fielding a pace-heavy attack.

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Reflecting on his debut series against Bangladesh in 2016, Duckett candidly admitted that he had “struggled to make an impression” but felt that such struggles were rather exaggerated. Though his performance in that series was certainly left wanting, Duckett pointed out that he had scored a half-century in one of the games; he claimed that he owed his initial struggles to the fact that he hadn’t “played much cricket” in subcontinent conditions because most of his career had been played within the comfort of England.

Ben Duckett’s hilarious response to @DeafMango‘s question! 🤣🤣#PakvsEng #ProSports #pakistancricket #englandcricket pic.twitter.com/PF3y3IcBWz

— ProSports (@Pro_SportsPK) October 16, 2024

In his interview with Geoff Lemon for Cricket365.com, Duckett spoke about his development since that testing debut. For him, a defining moment was facing Ravichandran Ashwin-considered one of the most feared bowlers against left-handers in the world-on England’s tour of India. This experience, according to Duckett, proved a “great learning curve” during which he learned real lessons on how to tackle a world-class spinner while playing against Ashwin.

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Earlier this year, Duckett had shown his maturity at the crease during England’s tour of India when he scored 343 runs in five Tests, and his centuries, though they could not save the series for his side, impressed and made him a bright spot for England, which lost the series 4-1. What was more notable was at Multan, where he is the fastest player to reach 2,000 Test runs in terms of balls faced.