Bowler-heavy selection justified as england find formula to win without ben stokes

Tim Wigmore Deputy Cricket Correspondent, at Old Trafford 24 August 2024 8:50pm BST It is the challenge that England did not want: how to pick an XI without Ben Stokes. But even a flawed

performance at Old Trafford added to the sense that, without Stokes, England are best-served by retaining five specialist bowlers. The trade-off with such a team is slightly weaker batting.

Yet a middle order of Joe Root, Harry Brook and then Jamie Smith at number six would, by most standards in English Test history, still amount to enviable riches. One boon of Smith’s

selection as wicketkeeper ahead of Ben Foakes is the extra flexibility that it provides. For all his qualities as a batsman, Foakes could not slot in as Test number six. For Smith, the

position is still two places lower than his normal berth as a specialist batsman for Surrey. After 111 in his first Test innings at number six, Smith’s clinical 39, injecting impetus into an

innings that had stagnated, took England to the brink of victory. The rebalancing of the side in Stokes’s absence also forced another man to be promoted up the order: Chris Woakes. His

innings of 25 and eight not out extended Woakes’s success when promoted to number seven: he now averages 62.8 in the position. While the sample size is small, and ideally Woakes would be at

number eight, in English conditions he has proved himself a very worthy number seven: his overall batting average at home is 33.3 from 32 Tests. Promoting Smith and Woakes ensures that

England can field five bowlers. In a curious way, such a strategy relies on bad luck to show its true worth: the injury to Mark Wood made England grateful for the insurance strategy built

into their side. Had Jordan Cox replaced Stokes in the XI, when Wood went down injured England’s attack would have been reduced to Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir and two more

off-spinners – Joe Root and Dan Lawrence – in support. It was the third time in the past 18 months that, after picking a five-man attack, England have needed such insurance. In the last

Ashes series, Ollie Robinson could not bowl in the second innings at Headingley, and Moeen Ali could not bowl in the first innings at The Oval. With a four-man attack, such blows could have

cost England the Test match; with a five-man attack, England still had the resources to take 20 wickets and win both Tests. Selecting five bowlers also ensures that Wood can be unleashed in

short spells, rather than have to rein himself in. The structure means that bowlers can be deployed when they are most effective, not merely because the rest of the attack are too fatigued.

Matthew Potts was the beneficiary of Stokes’s hamstring injury. Given a County Championship average of 41.1 this year, Potts might have felt piqued to be batting at number nine, below

Atkinson; a straight drive off Asitha Fernando attested to his batting improvement, and 17 was a useful contribution in the context of the match. Ideally, a fourth pace bowler would provide

variety. Rather than offer a new angle or a quirky action, Potts was the fourth right-arm seamer in the attack. After playing just one of England’s last 21 Tests, Potts’ initial spell had

the hint of a man overeager to impress. Bowling very full in pursuit of early swing, Potts repeatedly overpitched and was thrashed for 33 in his first five overs. He felt a little like a

spare part; in the second innings, Ollie Pope waited until the 22nd over to introduce Potts. Where Potts had sought swing in the first innings, in the second he embraced a less glamorous

role: bowling just short of a length, preventing Sri Lanka from driving easily. Sixteen balls into his second innings spell, Potts was vindicated when, with the help of some low bounce, he

trapped Dhananjaya de Silva lbw. It set the template for Potts’s approach, which became even more essential after Wood’s injury. The grunts, like a tennis player at Wimbledon, as Potts

delivers the ball encapsulate the sense of a cricketer straining to prove himself at Test level. Some professionals call them the ‘dirty overs’: the time when the pitch has flattened out,

the ball has gone soft and fatigue has set in. Potts embraced them as his own, summoning all his resourcefulness. He willingly accepted Pope’s request that he pound the pitch, though ideally

a bowler adopting this tactic would be able to summon a little more pace than Potts’s norm a tick below 85mph. There were cutters and slower balls, in a glimpse of the variations that Potts

deployed in the Hundred. Three wickets were Potts’ reward, a tally that could have been five but for two dropped catches. After two years marooned on the edge of the squad, Potts provided

evidence of England’s strength in depth. It was a performance that provided final vindication of how England assembled their side without Stokes.