Foakes comes of age with an innings of quiet accumulation
Red-ball specialist’s approach as ‘designated driver’ in his 32 not out alongside Root will strike a chord for head coach
Even before he played his first Test in this country, Ben Foakes could have been excused for fearing that his method of restrained accumulation was not entirely in keeping with the ethos of England’s new era.
In interviews before England’s opening Test, Brendon Mccullum, the new red-ball head coach, and Rob Key, the new managing director, strongly floated the possibility of a recall for Jos Buttler. It almost felt a little indiscreet: courting your next partner when your current relationship had barely begun.
The appeal of Foakes is, in many ways, as the antithesis of Buttler. Rather than a white-ball titan trying to bridge the growing gap between the formats, Foakes’s batting approach is that of an unabashed red-ball specialist. Where Buttler has not played in the County Championship
since 2018, Foakes has won his Test selection through years of excellence in the shires. And while Buttler is depicted as a batsmanwicketkeeper, Foakes is seen as the ideal of a wicketkeeper-batsman.
But just like Buttler, only in a very different way, Foakes has struggled to match the idealised image of him in Test cricket. On Test debut in Sri Lanka he hit an assured century. But he arrived at Lord’s averaging just 16.4 in his past eight Tests since the start of 2019; his last innings in the Caribbean ended in a self-inflicted run-out. While Foakes has widely been acclaimed as the best wicketkeeper in the world, in the West Indies he was less infallible than sometimes suggested.
On his return to England, he kept impeccably. He claimed five catches and conceded just a solitary bye – Tom Blundell, his opposite number, conceded 20. Yet when Foakes edged Tim Southee into the slips for seven in the first innings, it extended his wait for a Test halfcentury to 19 innings.
More concerning was the sense that England’s new approach of selecting the best four bowlers, and paying little heed to the length of the tail, did not sit easily with Foakes’s method of quiet accumulation. If England’s No7 has a porous lower order for company, a more enterprising approach – one associated with Buttler or Jonny Bairstow – would seem a better fit.
When he arrived on the third evening at Lord’s, with 118 needed to win, Foakes did not have to worry about marshalling the tail. Instead, he batted alongside Joe Root, allowing him to replicate his customary role at Surrey, where he normally bats at No5. Foakes did not need to worry about his tempo; he reached
nine off 48 balls at the close while Root accelerated.
“Go on, Ben” one fan told Foakes as he walked back from the nursery ground, where he was training with spin bowling coach Jeetan Patel, towards the England changing room on a sepulchral fourth morning at Lord’s. With the Test in the balance, Foakes was notably more assertive in his approach, harrying between the wickets and unfurling a sumptuous on drive off Kyle Jamieson.
For all of Root’s magnificence, he needed a partner who would play with the intelligence and shrewdness shown by Foakes. Without his undefeated 32, the fate of the Test might well have been different.
If he needs a template for his role now, Foakes need only look at the wicketkeeper in the New Zealand side Mccullum captained. When Mccullum took over, he immediately relinquished the gloves, handing them to BJ Watling. As a batsman, Watling was New Zealand’s designated driver, a cricketer defined by sheer adhesion and bloody-mindedness: his strike rate was a funereal 43.
Watling did not fit into the caricature of a Mccullum cricketer. And yet he was at the heart of New Zealand’s successes under Mccullum; the two shared an epic stand of 352 to give New Zealand a series victory over India in 2014. Indeed, Mccullum was so fond of Watling that he once said: “BJ is fast becoming my favourite cricketer.”
Foakes will now hope that his own unobtrusive contribution to Mccullum’s first Test as England coach helps him to become England’s very own Watling.
Rather than attempt to play like Buttler or Bairstow, Foakes’s best chance of making himself indispensable is to play like himself.