England’s best-laid plans are working. For all the talk of a data revolution in cricket, England have a captain in Ben Stokes who believes in his gut instinct as much as what the numbers may say.
In England’s 241-run win here yesterday, 20-year-old Shoaib Bashir became the youngest-ever player from these shores to take a five-wicket haul on home soil, something that Stokes insisted was not an “I-told-you-so” moment, after he plucked Bashir from obscurity last summer off the back of a social media video, until he conceded with a smile that, “it sort of [also] is”.
Much has been made of Bashir’s high release-point. At 6ft 4ins, the theory went that he had been selected for the India Test series earlier this year through data and science. How else could a 20-year-old with only six first-class appearances to his name be picked?
But then the truth emerged. Stokes had seen a clip online of Bashir bowling on his first-class debut to Alastair Cook, and liked what he saw.
“I’m in a WhatsApp group with Keysy [Rob Key] and Baz [Brendon McCullum],” Stokes said in February. “I forwarded the clip and said, ‘Have a look at this, this could be something we could work with on our India tour’ and it just progressed from there.”
Bashir, who is second-choice at his county Somerset, where former England spinner Jack Leach is picked ahead of him, has taken three five-wicket hauls in his first five Tests for England — the same number that Andrew Flintoff managed across his career.
Stokes’s captaincy is littered with moments where his mindset of attributes over averages has been rewarded. Last week, Gus Atkinson became the fifth player under his leadership to take a five-wicket haul on debut, joining Will Jacks, Rehan Ahmed, Josh Tongue and Tom Hartley. All four of those players, in their own way, were unique picks that would not have been seen in a different era: Jacks was a batter picked for the trip to Pakistan because he could contribute with the ball; Ahmed became the youngest English Test cricketer in history; Tongue had averaged 43 with the ball the previous season for Worcestershire and Hartley had averaged 45 for Lancashire.
But they worked. And at a time when Stokes’s England mantra has shifted from living in the now to planning for the future, England are reaping the benefits.
The pick of Bashir has worked; the selection of Atkinson has worked; and the pick of Jamie Smith as wicketkeeper, when he, like Bashir, is second-choice in that position for his county, Surrey, is looking inspired.
“This is the worst that they’ll be,” Stokes said of his next generation picks. “And if you think you can identify talent and you can throw them into an international environment and give them the confidence, give them the backing that they’re going to progress really quickly.
“The decisions we make are all based around not only how far we think their talent can take them, but we think that they’re good enough for Test cricket straight away.
“I don’t want to say it’s an ‘I told you so’ kind of thing, but it sort of is.”
Where hesitancy in praise is valid, however, is in the biggest decision of them all, which was to retire James Anderson. In the first innings at Trent Bridge, the new opening partnership of Atkinson and Chris Woakes found the least swing of a new-ball pairing for England in England in over a decade. And, as coincidences go, the Test at Trent Bridge was the first home match since 2012 to feature neither Anderson nor Stuart Broad.
But that rather is the point. Some of the changes Stokes has made are for now, some are for tomorrow. And in the absence of Anderson, Woakes, previously a change bowler, and Atkinson have the time and space to learn on the job. On the flip side, if they fail to live up to the hype, England have a year before the arrival of India and a tour of Australia.
For now, though, everything is coming up trumps in Bazball Mk II. The newbies are impressing and they are being complemented by a top order scoring runs and the return of an X-factor player in Mark Wood, who regularly bowled north of 90mph here.
It is a team being forged in the shape of Stokes, and he is so far succeeding in his task. And, in the meantime, make sure to keep uploading your clips to social media, because you may only be one video away from a call.
