You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. But if it then comes back and goes again? Well, really, you’ve probably had fair warning.
That has been England’s lot regarding Ben Stokes the all-round cricketer over the past year and a bit: a long spell when there was little to no bowling as part of the captain’s brief; followed by a tantalising reminder at the start of this summer of the full working thing; to now, and the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka that began in Manchester on Wednesday, in which the 33-year-old will play no part at all because of a hamstring injury.
England’s struggle to balance their side without Stokes is not confined to that period. It has been an issue throughout a career in which, despite playing 105 Tests, Stokes has also missed plenty, just as it had been for almost any England side not featuring Andrew Flintoff or Ian Botham in the 40-odd years prior. But having accepted there is nothing close to a like-for-like replacement for Stokes around, England, in the short term at least, appear to have stopped looking.
When Stokes pinged his hamstring playing for Northern Superchargers earlier this month, England were left with three avenues to explore. Having decided against another genuine all-rounder — Sam Curran being the in-form, if not exactly red-ball ripe pick — either of the remaining two would have left the XI listing one way.
In the end, they plumped for probably the lesser of two evils, adding the bowling of Matthew Potts and lengthening the tail, rather than the batting of Jordan Cox, where the risk would have been asking too much of a three-seam attack including the express pace of Mark Wood.
At the time of writing, the impact of that call on the result is TBC, but it would be a surprise were it a defining one. Such is the gap between the teams in these conditions and off these preparations, England will have to get a lot more wrong, and Sri Lanka plenty right, for the tourists to win the series.
That in itself probably explains why, even as they look long-term succession with Ollie Pope as captain, England were happy enough to go quick-fix on replacing Stokes the player and instead take another look at one they like in a different role.
Pope yesterday that Potts’s inclusion was something of a no-brainer given his regular part in squads during the Bazball era, just as Dan Lawrence getting the nod to open is essentially reward for his patience lugging drinks around the world for two years.
It is strange though, that in a summer when talk of Ashes planning has been more forthright, you feel with some certainty that the same scenario playing out in Australia would not have yielded the same team make-up.
Batting is this England’s strong suit, and this formula would not provide enough of it Down Under. In their last Test match at Old Trafford, against Australia last summer, Jonny Bairstow made 99 from 81 balls from No7; today that spot was being filled by Chris Woakes.
Woakes is a fine bowling all-rounder, and once scored a Test century from that very position (though, notably, with Curran for company at No8), but is one place too high and not in Bairstow’s league.
Nor, more pertinently, is he certain to tour Australia at the end of next year, having set out his late-career stall as a home specialist.
That ought to give England more scope: it is not just the doomsday scenario of a Stokes injury for which they ought to be planning, but also the likelier absence of Woakes, without whom England would be left with a crop of seamers who are presently No9s at best.
Potts made a first-class century for Durham earlier this year and could yet develop into a good enough batter to succeed Woakes. Given the profile of bowler England are looking at for their specialist quicks, that may prove the 25-year-old’s best route into the team.
A Stokes understudy, though, worthy of a place both in the top seven and in a five-man attack, remains a non-existent thing. No seam all-rounders in the County Championship leap off the page. Among spinners, Lawrence might, paradoxically, have been an option, but England are all-in on Shoaib Bashir, and with Joe Root around as part-time assistance, more slow overs do not help much.
And so you keep coming back to Curran, who Pope confirmed remains available for Test cricket but, as throughout the Bazball era, overlooked.
