During the Oval Test against Sri Lanka last September, an influential member of the England dressing-room suggested over dinner that it would be hard to squeeze Essex seamer Sam Cook into the Test team – essentially because he wasn’t quick enough.
Yet when England name their squad for next month’s four-day Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge, Cook – whose offerings settle in at around 80mph – is set for inclusion, earning the chance at the age of 27 to show that a remarkable first-class record of 318 wickets at 19 each can translate into success at the highest level.
So what has changed, and why might this mean a ticket to Australia for the winter Ashes?
At one level, England have been obliged to cast their net wide because of injury and absence. The quickest of their attack, Mark Wood, has been all but ruled out of the summer with knee trouble, while Brydon Carse (toe) and Chris Woakes (ankle) are yet to play this season, and Jofra Archer is at the IPL. Olly Stone is injured, as he often is.
At another level, though, England have tweaked their approach. Pace is still important: it’s why there is excitement about the start made this season by Josh Tongue, who is back from injury and has helped bowl Nottinghamshire to the top of the table. (Worryingly for England fans, his partner-in-crime has been the New Zealand-born Australian quick Fergus O’Neill, though that’s another story.)
But if pace still matters, especially in Australia, then so does accuracy and skill. This won’t come as news to those who watched Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad tot up more than 1,300 Test wickets between them, but it is a slight departure from recent Bazball wisdom. And it has brought Cook into contention.
Essex’s Sam Cook is set to get his England Test debut against Zimbabwe next month
Cook’s deliveries average around 80mph but he has been one of the premier county quicks for some time
Touring Australia with England Lions over the winter, he returned figures of 8–3–15–4 and 26–10–47–4 in successive games against a Cricket Australia XI
Even a shallow dive into his record reveals the logic. Last summer, he took 10 for 73 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge during one of the rounds when the county game was experimenting with the dreaded Kookaburra, the ball of choice down under.
Then, touring Australia with England Lions over the winter, he returned figures of 8–3–15–4 and 26–10–47–4 in successive games against a Cricket Australia XI. This was not the work of an old-fashioned English seamer unable to adapt to adapt abroad, but of someone with nous and class. And with the double-lacquered Kookaburra offering seamers in Australia more assistance than usual, Cook suddenly looks a natural fit.
In fairness, England’s MD Rob Key has always accepted there is room for a Cook-type bowler in the Test attack. It’s just that, for two decades, that bowler was Anderson, who set the bar impossibly high. And it’s perhaps why, for a while after his enforced retirement, pace became the obsession.
Cook, though, has fought off competition from Surrey’s ex-Aussie Dan Worrall, and may now get his chance against Zimbabwe, possibly India, and maybe even Australia. Just as significantly, his selection may help rebuild some of the bridges between county and country that, under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, have been in danger of falling down.
Look around the circuit after an engrossing first month of the summer, and many of the success stories are recently discarded Test players who refuse to believe the Bazballers have written them off. And just as Cook’s rise would confirm that England have not ceased to regard the domestic game as a stepping stone for the Test team, plenty of others are proving that being dropped need not be the end of the matter.
This is especially true of top-order batsmen, who are keeping one eye on the form of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope. Haseeb Hameed (10 Tests, average 24), Dom Sibley (22 and 28), Rory Burns (32 and 30) and Alex Lees (10 and 23), have all enjoyed good starts. They all look better players than when they were first picked for England, especially Hameed and Sibley.
Dom Sibley looks in better touch now than he did when he was first called up for England
Alex Lees is another opener who is aiming for a second chance after being dropped following the first Bazball summer
Tom Haines has been flying for Sussex and is pushing for Zak Crawley’s opening spot
Tom Haines, who is averaging 73 for Sussex, and Durham’s highly rated 20-year-old Ben McKinney are both in the mix, too. And don’t forget Crawley’s own opening partner at Kent, Ben Compton, who this season has averaged 76 to Crawley’s 29.
But it is the success of the four ex-Test openers that is most instructive, since they are proof that the county system – so often derided for its grind – can provide an environment for players to work on flaws exposed first time round by high-class bowlers and unforgiving ex-pros in the commentary box. And if Crawley bombs against Zimbabwe and in the first two Tests against India, one of the names in the paragraphs above may find himself preparing for a trip to Australia.
Better players have been dropped before them. Most famously, Don Bradman was briefly left out after his debut in 1928-29; more recently, England omitted Joe Root at Sydney during the 2013-14 Ashes whitewash. It happens. The question is how a player responds.
Two other examples suggest this process is not straightforward. Jonny Bairstow, 35 and still bristling over his treatment by England, has started the season with a characteristic head of steam, averaging 56 for Yorkshire and plainly determined to give it one last crack. Then there’s Ollie Robinson, the Sussex seamer who is in danger of never adding to a terrific Test record (76 wickets at 22) and this summer has county figures of eight at 41.
England could name their Test squad as early as this week, ahead of a three- or four-day training camp in Loughborough in the second week of May. If it confirms that the umbilical cord between domestic cricket and the international setup has not been fatally damaged, everyone will be a winner.
Bethell beaten by the calendar
Jacob Bethell ought to have been a shoo-in for the Zimbabwe Test after second-innings scores of 50 not out, 96 and 76 from No 3 during England’s series in New Zealand before Christmas.
Jacob Bethell’s IPL gig is set to scupper his Test chances against Zimbabwe next month
Bethell was hugely impressive batting at No3 in the Test series triumph in New Zealand
Despite batting as high as No 4 for Warwickshire only once when he took the field at Christchurch in late November, and possessing a first-class average of 25, Bethell did so well that Brendon McCullum all but admitted he would be pushing Ollie Pope for a place come the summer.
But Bethell’s IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, are on course for the play-offs, which would almost certainly rule him out of the Trent Bridge Test – despite the fact that he has appeared in only one of their 10 games.
If Pope plays against Zimbabwe and scores a hundred, what then? Bethell is just the latest reminder that the calendar isn’t yet capable of accommodating everything or everyone.
The records won’t stop for 14-year-old IPL star
Last week, this column flagged up the six over extra cover with which the 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi (he may be 15, but still) began his IPL career.
Yesterday, he made more headlines, battering a 35-ball century – the second-fastest in the tournament’s history – and turning Rajasthan Royals’ pursuit of Gujarat Titans’ 209 for four into a stroll in Jaipur.
Sachin Tendulkar first played for India at the age of 16 years 205 days, so it will be curious if Suryavanshi doesn’t break that record. The sight of him and old man Yashasvi Jaiswal (23) flaying new-ball attacks all over the place could be the story of the next decade.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi is set to smash record after record following his astonishing IPL century
The 14-year-old plundered the second-fastest hundred in IPL history
A predictable, sad response to reason
In this year’s Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, published last week, I voiced concerns about the unchecked growth of Indian power.
A typical response went along these lines: England and Australia ran the show for years, now it’s India’s turn.
And there, in a nutshell, is cricket’s problem – a world in which two wrongs apparently make a right.
