There has been a lot of talk about Sam Robson over the past few months, whether he would play for England of his native Australia. Born in New South Wales with a mother from Nottinghamshire, Robson decided to fly half way across the world to pursue his cricketing career in England.
Having completed his residency in August 2013 when England were dominating their Australian opposition Robson shrugged off questions when asked about his international future by saying he wasn’t good enough for test cricket. Now he has publicly stated “If I ever become good enough, I want to play for England.”.
Since then he has been on the Performance Programme tour of Australia whilst the senior side were being white washed and Kevin Pietersen was fulfilling his prophecy to annihilate his international career. He scored hundreds there, he has played for the England Lions in Sri Lanka and scored hundreds there, two in the three unofficial test matches. Robson has now returned to England after a fruitful winter, with the prospect of possibly representing the country of his mothers birth, much in the fashion of the aforementioned Kevin Pietersen. Albeit with less controversial baggage behind him.
When news was filtering through to The Home of Cricket that Alastair Cook and Ian Bell had both scored centuries against their respective opposition, Sam Robson was well on his way to scoring a hundred of his own. It was fate. England looking for an opening batsman since experiments with Joe Root and Michael Carberry haven’t exactly produced the kind of results which cement an opening berth at test level. England’s first test match of the summer, as it usually is will be at Lords, Robson’s home ground. It seems as if the young opening batsman may follow in the footsteps of former England captain Andrew Strauss and make his debut on his home ground.
Having already played 66 matches, Robson has already amassed 12 first class hundreds at an average of 42.29 with a highest score of 215*. Although he has very limited one day and T20 experience he may not find himself playing in all three forms of the game, Sam Robson is definitely an exceptional long form player. He will have to continue to perform in the coming weeks before the first test match comes around, with fierce competition from Carberry who at the moment holds the opening role with Cook also scoring a match wining hundred this past week. If Robson doesn’t find his test debut forthcoming this summer, it won’t be too long until he finds himself pulling on the three lions jersey.