London: If anyone is going to replace Ben Stokes on England’s tour of Australia, it is going to be Chris Woakes. They both bat right-handed and bowl fast-medium, they both enjoyed lucrative IPL gigs earlier this year, and their surnames rhyme, even if their temperaments come at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Having a Test batting average higher than the bowling average is always a good place to start an Ashes tour: for Woakes it is 32 playing 30, for Stokes 35 playing 33, so the same differential. The challenge ahead of Woakes now is to take wickets in Tests abroad - which has always been especially hard for England bowlers on the cast-iron pitches of Australia.
Over the course of Ashes history, only England’s few real speedsters have taken wickets in large, cheap quantities in Australia: Harold Larwood on his Bodyline tour, Frank Tyson when he enabled Len Hutton to regain the Ashes in 1954-55, and John Snow when he did the same for Ray Illingworth in 1970-71. Anything less than outright pace does not normally cut it. So James Anderson — although he had a wonderful series in 2010-11 when he made the ball swing, reverse-swing and almost talk — has an overall record in Australia of 43 wickets at 38 runs each.
Before boarding the plane to Perth, Woakes had been practising at England’s high-performance centre in Loughborough in a tent heated up to 30 degrees to simulate Down Under, as well as in the Edgbaston nets with Moeen Ali, another all-rounder who has to grow his game to compensate for Stokes.
Woakes has been getting to grips with the Kookaburra ball which, typically in Australia, swings conventionally for 20 overs at most, and then not much, but does have reverse-swing potential. This could be a lifeline for Woakes away from home. In England, he has taken 42 wickets at only 24 each with outswing which at best has been positively Andersonian. But in India last winter his three wickets cost 81 each, and in South Africa the winter before, his two wickets cost 98 each. As a fine batsman himself — easily mistaken for Joe Root when they bat together — Woakes would have taken apart his own bowling abroad.
For this tour, England have a new — and at present temporary — bowling coach in Shane Bond, the former New Zealand fast bowler who has rapidly made a reputation as the best around.
Bond, though his own career was injury-blighted, took a dozen wickets for Warwickshire back in 2002 so Woakes has slightly more of a connection than most of the England bowlers. “Once a Bear, always a Bear,” jokes Woakes.
Getting the ageing Kookaburra to reverse is indispensable if England are to compete in this Ashes, let alone win it. Fortunately, Woakes and England’s other seamers did it with the Kookaburra in the two Tests in Bangladesh last autumn, so there is reason to hope they can penetrate after Anderson has finished with the new ball.
Mark Wood was intended to be England’s reverse-swing specialist in Australia this winter, but he is another Durham player who will be missing, in his case through injury.
Woakes is not actually in the England Test team as he was omitted from the last Test of the summer against West Indies: he had bowled rustily in the Headingley Test on his return to the side after an intercostal injury on the opening day of the Champions Trophy on June 1. “I probably didn’t have enough overs under my belt,” admitted Woakes, “but now I feel I’ve recharged my batteries and [my] side is as good as it’s been since the injury.”
Stokes’s absence will enable Woakes to rise in the batting order, at least to number eight. “I’ve always tried to have the mindset of a batsman rather than a guy contributing down the order,” Woakes said.
He also has the advantage of having played One-day Internationals in Australia. Thereby he has already grasped the essence that makes an Ashes tour of Australia uniquely demanding, the biggest ordeal there is for any England cricketer: “In Australia you’re taking on the nation as well as the team.”
