Jacks could be England's next-gen batting superstar
The right-hander hit a run-a-ball 73 with the help of six fours and four sixes on a North Sound wicket that helped the spinners significantly.
England have already moved on from Jason Roy. Jonny Bairstow is 34 now and unlikely to feature in the next World Cup. Dawid Malan, to his own admission, has probably played his last match in England colours.
So, the West Indies ODI series provided players like Will Jacks, Phil Salt and Zak Crawley with an opportunity to show their white-ball credentials as England look to shrug off the World Cup failure.
Jacks and Salt have been given the opening duties for the series and it looks like they have so far done fairly well, having provided two flying starts in two games. The 25-year-old Jacks hit his second ODI fifty on Wednesday, setting up a series-levelling win over the West Indies.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The right-hander hit a run-a-ball 73 with the help of six fours and four sixes on a North Sound wicket that helped the spinners significantly.
Jacks has enough experience of playing on slow pitches, having played a fair amount of competitive cricket in the subcontinent.
The opening batter was impressive in the 2022 Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), his first full-fledged foreign T20 league opportunity and the performance was instrumental in earning him contracts in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) and he made his way into the national team as well.
An aggressive opener in white-ball cricket, Jacks lit up this year's The Hundred and the Vitality Blast. His off-spinners are quite handy and he got a five-wicket haul on his Test debut against Pakistan. With Moeen Ali not playing Tests anymore, Jacks could be the spin-bowling all-rounder England are looking for.
But his biggest job will be to fill the void left by the likes of Bairstow, Roy and Malan and early signs suggest he is ready to tee off.
