The return of Ben Foakes for Jos Buttler on England’s tour of the Caribbean was a significant shift, but flew under the radar with more controversial calls made.
One series in, and the debate is not quite as closed as the selectors might have hoped it would be by now. Foakes failed to light up the series, and was outplayed – although not out-kept – by his opposite number, Joshua da Silva.
He kept solidly in tough circumstances – England’s seamers bowled so much down the legside, and slow pitches meant the ball bobbled through to him regularly. He missed one tough chance in Grenada, as Jermaine Blackwood nicked a ball he was trying to leave, and did not create opportunities in the way he would have hoped to, but his ability to stand up to the seamers gave England another dimension.
With the bat, Foakes had an odd series. He was excellent on the very first day, scoring 42 in partnership with centurion Jonny Bairstow. He then had three innings in declaration situations, before a poor match in Grenada, which culminated in an absurd run out. With England hanging on, it was a very poor bit of cricket that proved to be one of the final nails in the coffin.
Foakes was under significant pressure in the series, for two reasons. First is that he had been handed England’s most competitive position, perhaps the only one in which they are brimming with viable Test-class options.
While the barrel was scraped with the selection of James Bracey, a batter who keeps rather than a keeper, at Lord’s last summer when they suffered an IPL and injury-related availability crisis, England used three other classy keepers in their six Tests before this tour: Buttler, Sam Billings and Jonny Bairstow.
Second is that his reputation has preceded him, since even before Alec Stewart labelled him the world’s best wicketkeeper years ago. Many of his ardent advocates – for whom his absence has been a scandal that only made their hearts grow fonder – would have you believe that every half-chance fluffed by Buttler or Bairstow would have been simply pouched by Foakes. This series was a reminder that it is a little more nuanced than that.
Foakes sets himself very high standards, and will know he did not hit them in this series and is yet to absolutely nail his place in the side.
With the bat, he needs to arrest a decline in his returns. Foakes is a decent batter, an accumulator carded at No5 for Surrey not reliant on lavish hitting. That makes No7 a challenge in some ways, as his instinct is to build, not counter-attack as so many keepers do. He ended his first Test series with an average of 69, his second at 41.5, his third at 31.5, and it is now 28. That trend needs reversing.
Still, whoever is captain, head coach or director of cricket, Foakes should absolutely be inked in for England’s next Test, against New Zealand in June. None of his 11 Tests have come at home, which is an unfortunate quirk and largely down to the freak injury he suffered on the eve of the New Zealand series last summer.
Foakes deserves a full home summer to prove he is the right man for the job in the long term, because others are hovering. While it is very possible that Buttler, at 31, has played the final red-ball match of his career (he did not appear to enjoy the last year in Test cricket), Bairstow and Billings will linger.
Bairstow is not working on his keeping like he once did, but his aspirations with the gloves will never fully die, even if his batting average suddenly became Bradmanian. He sees it as part of his identity, and a family trade passed down by his late father David.
Billings has been tipped as a left-field captaincy candidate, which is premature. But he should have been selected for this tour as Foakes’ understudy and as a utility batter; Ollie Pope was selected as a drinks carrier, but would have been better served back at Surrey to get his batting on track. Billings was a breath of fresh air for a broken team on debut in Hobart, and has something to offer a group severely lacking leaders.
Foakes has captained Surrey and is the sort of calm head England need. He can probably never quite living up to his billing, but he can get closer than he did on this tour.
