GIVEN A CHANCE, NOW MAKE SURE IT’S TAKEN...
Richard Ford, one of America’s greatest living writers, might have had Chris Woakes in mind when he wrote this in ‘The Sportswriter’ – his elegiac novel about a man resurrecting his life.
“There is nothing as noble and enduring as the willingness to come off the bench to play a great game knowing full well that you’ll never be a regular.”
Ford had a sympathy for the underdog rarely shared in a society that tends to recognise winners and alpha performers at the expense of all others. He might have added that substitutes need iron constitutions as well, just to be able to cope with the cycle of promotion and rejection that the role entails.
Woakes is 27 and has played six Tests, 43 one-day internationals and eight T20s for England, playing the first of them, an ODI, five and half years ago. If that sounds healthy enough, England have played 120 ODIs since his debut, which casts him as a bit-part player even in one-day cricket.
Like several before him – James Tredwell, Kabir Ali, Martin Bicknell all come to mind – Woakes is one of those cricketers whose county performances catch the selectors’ eye only for his international ones to contain less sparkle. It is a disparity that has so far consigned him that limbo-land frequented by lost souls who must cross the river Styx or be forever cast between one world and the next.
His most recent excursion to the top was when he played two Tests in England’s recent series triumph over South Africa, after James Anderson missed the opening match and Steven Finn the last one, with injury. He took two wickets for 197 runs and, while that is scarcely noteworthy, he finds himself filling in again for the indisposed, this time Ben Stokes, who is out of the current series against Sri Lanka following a knee operation.
Woakes comes to the party in white-hot form, his nine for 36 against Durham in the County Championship being a career best. That was at Edgbaston, a pitch possessed of true early season spite, at least it was on the morning’s play I saw there recently when Warwickshire hosted Somerset. Yet, even if he did something similar for England, and made some runs into the bargain, you sense he’d be overlooked as soon as the thoroughbreds he steps in for were back on their feet.
While many might ask, quite reasonably, what is wrong with being the ‘go-to’ man when injuries strike, no competitive sportsman would be happy settling for replacement status irrespective of monikers like ‘Supersub’, which damn with faint praise. Anyway, such a title would be misplaced in Woakes’ case, whose Test batting average of 21.5, and bowling average of 63.7, are below being super anything.
Woakes knows this and while it is never easy finding your best cricket with such limited opportunities, he has tried to up his game by adding a yard and half of pace to his bowling. But while the added zip has helped to increase his potency against county batsmen, it has scarcely registered against Test players for whom 83 or 87 mph is really neither here nor there.
Anyway, as I discovered during my own career, striving for extra pace can mess with your technical gifts. Unless you are able to up the gears enough to zip it down at 90mph plus, it is far better to move the ball sideways
Unless you are able to up the gears enough to zip it down at 90mph, it is far better to move the ball sideways against good batsmen
against good batsmen than to get it through quicker, gun-barrel straight. Of course, good pace and sideways movement are the holy grail and the reason bowlers like Anderson and Stuart Broad have been England mainstays for so long.
One of the reasons Woakes has not yet made that leap could be down to his stiffish, mechanical action with its weak front arm. With tension already inbuilt, it is less able to absorb the stresses and strains that come when making the step up to international cricket. A bowler who can seam and swing (both technically demanding skills), Woakes needs only a small gremlin in the works to be rendered ineffective. And let’s face it, being in and out of the side is never a recipe for bringing out one’s relaxed best.
For all the disappointments of not being a regular, Woakes still turns up full of good cheer and protestant work ethic. In that regard he is a bit like the teacher’s pet, partial to the propaganda that if you work hard and play by the book then good things will come to you, eventually.
Unfortunately, the real world does not work like that, though he had his chance to make his mark in Durban and didn’t take it. On a pitch that offered more than a bit off the seam, he played the good team man giving little away by dialing into a steady, but ineffectual, line and length. Sometimes you must risk something to make a personal statement and get noticed, a minor insurrection Woakes has yet to stage at international level.
Despite all the evidence, he must still believe a 20-cap run is just round the corner (he has to in order to stay sane). After all, it happened to Tim Bresnan, a cricketer in similar mould to Woakes. A solid performer for Yorkshire, Bresnan’s first six Tests spanned several series before a regular spot saw him notch up 23, including two Ashes victories.
One attribute he had, and one which Woakes clearly possesses, is a phlegmatic pragmatism and the ability to absorb whatever triumph and disasters are thrown their way.
At 27,Woakes is in his physical prime. He just needs a string of top-notch performances for England to convince people he is a cut above being a solid, dependable stop-gap. Either that or he should get a tattoo.