Gus Atkinson, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood – an early update on England's post Broad and Anderson pace bowling situation

07/23/2024 05:24 AM

3minute read

Before the English domestic season recommenced, we picked out the four quick bowlers we felt were most likely to represent ‘the next generation’ following the retirement of Stuart Broad. (We didn’t at that point know that James Anderson was also on his way out.) Precisely none of these bowlers have played for England since. So where does that leave us?

To quickly recap, the four quick bowlers we identified were Matt Fisher, Saqib Mahmood, Matt Potts and Josh Tongue. All four are in their mid-20s and had been handed Test caps in the last couple of years. It seemed safe to assume one of them might fill the void.

But no.

Not yet, at least.

Gus Atkinson

England instead liked the look of Gus Atkinson and so picked him for the first Test of summer. Other than the high-fiving, his debut was almost flawless. His second Test, however, was not much more than okay – at least in terms of wickets.

It’s hard to draw too many conclusions. What we do know is that Atkinson is quicker than most. He typically bowls at that speed that is on the cusp of ‘fast’ without quite qualifying – Andrew Flintoff pace, basically. Two weeks into his Test career, he is also yet to suffer a recurrence of a stress fracture, which is very promising.

Chris Woakes

“Chris Woakes is Mr Dependable,” according to Ben Stokes, on the basis that, “he generally always delivers.”

That is such a beautifully qualified compliment. (Very “60% of the time, it works every time.”)

If there were a low octane superhero called Mr Dependable, we hope that would be his catchphrase: “Mr Dependable is here! I generally always deliver!”

Woakes took a while to get going in the second Test, but finished the first innings with figures of 4-84 and then took 2-28 in the second.

That effort means his home bowling average (from 30 Tests) is now 30 runs lower than his away bowling average (from 20 Tests) – 21.87 versus 51.88.

Where does that leave us? England have stopped picking Woakes for overseas Tests and we can’t see that much would sway them on that.

It feels a little like he has taken on the “extension of the coaching team” role in home games now that Jimmy’s been shunted into the coaching team proper.

Mark Wood

To paraphrase Kevin Keegan, England fast bowlers aren’t born these days until they’re in their mid-30s. England’s fastest bowler just keeps getting faster and faster.

Where will it end? Wood’s recent exploits feel a little like playing Out Run where you’d typically accelerate and acclerate, faster and faster, until you hit something and it all came to a very sudden end.

The third Test

England have now won the series and there’s been little point shooting for World Test Championship points for quite some time now. Is there a chance they might start resting quick bowlers after one whole Test without James Anderson? Do the players above therefore constitute the first-choice attack? How can we know?

If it comes to that, Matt Potts and Dillon Pennington are the other two bowlers in the squad.

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