From the fringes of the Test side, Chris Woakes has now become indispensable in the space of three matches and at Lord’s has produced a display full of character
George Dobell at Lord's16-Jul-2016Whatever happens in the final stages of this game – and it is has lived up to all the pre-match hopes – England may look back upon the Lord’s Test as a coming of age moment for Chris Woakes.It is not just that Woakes has taken five-wicket hauls in both innings. Or that he has become just the third England player (after Ian Botham in 1978 and Stuart Broad in 2012) to earn his way on to the Lord’s honours board for a 10-wicket haul in the last 40 years.It was that, in every spell, he has looked England’s most dangerous bowler. He has gained more lateral movement than any bowler in the match, he has bowled with hostility, skill and control and emerged as his captain’s first-choice option when he required either a wicket or control.Ashley Giles, Warwickshire’s director of cricket at the time, once remarked that he wished he could clone Woakes and select a team full of such characters. While Giles was, of course, joking – the boys at Bluffborough can put down their test tubes – you can see what he means: Woakes is low-maintenance, low-ego, hard-working, skilful and fit and willing to bowl or bat all day.As cricket writer Vithushan Ehantharajah memorably put it: when you were a teenager, Woakes was the sort of guy you would tell your parents you were going to stay with so they didn’t worry about you going to a house party at Alex Hales’ house. While Ben Stokes gives the impression that you might not want to knock over his pint in a pub, Woakes gives the impression that, should you knock over his, he would apologise to you, offer to clean up the mess and buy a round for everyone involved.It could be that Woakes’ modesty – he made a point, quite rightly, of praising the contribution of his bowling colleagues for building pressure in Pakistan’s second innings in an interview with Sky immediately after play – is sometimes mistaken for diffidence. But just as Jos Buttler has shown that, beneath the soft voice and good manners there is a character that longs for the heat of battle, so Woakes is starting to show that he thrives under pressure. The unbeaten 95 to help England to a tie against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge a few weeks ago showed both character and calmness and has given him the confidence to know that he belongs at this level.As that confidence has grown, so has his preparedness to use the tricks he has at his disposal. So, in the first innings, Wahab Riaz was bowled by an inswinger that Woakes has, at times, felt risked giving away runs, and, in the second innings, Asad Shafiq (who looks the most technically correct batsman in the match) was deceived by one delivered wider on the crease. He is running in quicker, he is batting and bowling with more conviction. He may never be quite the bowler James Anderson has developed into, but you can be very good without being that good.Woakes gives selectors ‘a good headache’ – Moeen
Moeen Ali believes that Chris Woakes has given the selectors a headache with his superb performances with bat and ball this summer, and says he is delighted for a player whom he has known throughout their progression through the age-group ranks at Warwickshire.
“Hopefully he’ll get the hundred now and he can go on all three boards in the changing room,” said Moeen. “He’s bowled brilliantly in this game.
“I was with him at the academy at Warwickshire, and played club cricket against him quite a bit in the Birmingham League. Me and him basically grew up together in the age groups at Warwickshire, and with us both being Brummies, I’m very happy for him.”
“I think he’s always been a quality allrounder, but sometimes it’s about confidence. When Stokesy [Ben Stokes] got injured, Woakesy came in on the back of a nine-for [for Warwickshire against Durham], and that’s the biggest thing for him. He came in full of confidence and, ever since then, he’s batted well and bowled well.
With James Anderson and Ben Stokes both expected to be fit for the second Test at Old Trafford next week, the likelihood is that someone in the current side will have to make way. Woakes, however, could hardly have made a better case in his own defence.
“If I got 11 wickets I’d be gutted if I got dropped,” said Moeen. “Obviously the coach and the captain have to decide but we’ve got quality seamers to come in, and Stokesy can play as a batter at times. But it’s good for the side. Jake Ball bowled well and Finny [Steven Finn] bowled well today. It’s a good headache to have.”
It was Woakes’ composure, as much as his swing, that first impressed when he emerged at Warwickshire. Coming into a dressing room deeply divided between the older players and a coach who many of them despised (the unfortunate Mark Greatbatch), Woakes kept his head down and simply got on with his job.Whether confronted by triumph – as a 19-year-old he finished the 2008 season with 45 first-class wicket at 20.48 apiece – or disaster – two head-high no-balls saw him removed from the attack and went a long way towards Warwickshire losing a T20 quarter-final against Kent in the same season – he reacted with a shrug, a smile and by vowing to work harder and be better. While still a teenager, he had emerged into the leader of the Warwickshire attack: a swing-bowler who set up batsmen with his outswing and dismissed them with his inswing. He was, people said, the inheritor of Dougie Brown’s position.But he has turned out to be better than that. Woakes may well be the natural inheritor of Anderson’s position. While other bowlers – notably Steven Finn – are hit-the-deck seamers, Woakes remains at heart a swing bowler but he has had to learn, just as Anderson did, other skills – notably the extra pace, but also the level of control that applied huge pressure on Pakistan in the afternoon session here – to survive at this level.Test pitches, especially Test pitches overseas, rarely offer the sort of assistance he might find at Edgbaston. So he learned to bowl a sharp short ball and he learned that, beating a batsman with swing is little use if they never have to play at the ball outside off stump because it is only a matter of time before the loose ball on the legs arrives. His control here has been close to immaculate and Graeme Welch, the former bowling coach at Warwickshire, could be forgiven for feeling some satisfaction at seeing the work he put into Woakes’ action – not least, using his front arm more and running in harder – paying dividends.By the time Woakes came on to bowl in the second innings, the game was slipping away from England. Their batsmen had squandered the opportunity to set a match-defining total (Woakes reasoned they were 100 short of par; it may be more like 200) and after Mohammad Hafeez had departed early, Pakistan appeared to be building an impregnable position.But he conceded just 15 in his 10-over spell split by the interval, taking two wickets in the process, as he combined all those attributes – pace, swing and control – in a spell that would have made Anderson proud. It does not, for a moment, mean that Anderson is about to be dropped. But it does mean there is no need to rush him back before he has proved his fitness beyond reasonable doubt and it does offer hope for England’s future once Anderson bows to the inevitable demands of Time. Anderson, who has rated Woakes for some time and been generous both in praise and his preparedness to share his advice, will delight in this emergence more than most.Let’s be clear: this pitch offers, at this stage at least, bowlers very little. While some may wake-up on the other side of the world, glance at the scorecard and presume that Woakes is the beneficiary of a typically green, English pitch, this wicket has been slow, low and offered almost nothing off the seam. While Woakes has swung the ball both ways in both innings, bowlers as skilful as Mohammad Amir and Stuart Broad have struggled to gain any movement.Woakes has been widely respected by his fellow professionals for a long time, but it has taken a while to see the best of at this level. Selected for England’s limited-overs team back in 2011 when he had skills far more suited to the red ball than the white – he was, at the time, a medium-fast swing bowler without a notable yorker or bouncer – he was unfortunate to play his first Test (the final Ashes encounter of the summer of 2013) on an excellent batting surface and then struggled to force his way back into the side.Chris Woakes showed his full range of skills in taking another five-wicket haul•AFPWhile he impressed during the India series of 2014, he was always an understudy to Anderson and Broad and was generally required to fulfil the unglamorous holding role with an old ball. He endured a poor game in Centurion – maybe he was anxious, maybe he had lost rhythm after almost a month of just bowling in the nets – and it seemed that some England supporters had lost patience with him.He might not have played this summer had Ben Stokes not sustained a knee injury during the Headingley Test against Sri Lanka. But that mishap and nine wickets in an innings against Durham in late May won him a recall. And now, for the fifth time this summer, he has achieved Test-best figures. Both with bat and ball, he is growing in stature by the match. Right now, he has a better Test bowling average than Amir, Broad and Anderson.Some may point to the similarities between Woakes and Stokes and wonder if they are in competition with one another for a place. They aren’t, really. Stokes, certainly the better batsman, may never offer the consistency of Woakes, but he is, in the field, with the bat and with the ball (remember the Trent Bridge Ashes Test in 2015?) capable of doing things others are not. Worrying about what to do with two such allrounders is like worrying about having too much money.An England team with both of them – and Moeen Ali or Adil Rashid, too – has enviable all-round depth. Such all-round depth that picking a specialist keeper becomes a realistic option. Had Jonny Bairstow’s drop of Sarfraz Ahmed on 37 been a one-off it would be possible to ignore it. But it keeps happening. And for Finn, who bowled a much-improved spell, it was heartbreakingly unfortunate.England have their work cut out to win this. Bearing in mind how poorly they played Yasir Shah in the first innings and some evidence of uneven bounce on day three, a target of 300 is likely to prove hugely testing.But this has been the classic, fluctuating, engrossing match for which we all hoped. There’s no reason to think the ending won’t be just as entertaining.
