With the pace bowler James Anderson’s retirement, the door has opened for other key bowlers to lead England’s pace attack in the longer format and captain Ben Stokes believes that the opportunity is especially beneficial for Chris Woakes, who is set to play his 50th Test on Thursday as well.
“I see it (James Anderson’s retirement) as an opportunity for someone like Chris Woakes to take up the leadership role in the bowling unit,” Stokes said on Wednesday. “Woaksy is a very experienced bowler, a very experienced player. We have been so used to Jimmy and Broady doing that. But we don’t have them now. I see that as an opportunity for Woaksy. (Woakes has been) A phenomenal performer, especially in England and great for him now to lead the attack.”
However, James Anderson brought curtains down on a 22-year Test career when he announced his retirement following the recently-concluded Lord’s Test against West Indies but the veteran pace bowler will stay on with the squad as part of the support staff as well.
“The last few days has been really good,” Stokes said. “You can see that the lads are really desperate to pick his brains. Obviously before that it was a bit different. Jimmy has always been preparing for his games, so it’s about letting him do his stuff and pick his brains as much as you can, that felt appropriate. But now obviously he’s just standing there and you can see lads drawn towards him wanting to pick his brains about what he thinks, how he holds certain deliveries. I think it has been a very, very smooth transition. But there is no doubt that there has been emotions with Jimmy. But with him still being around the team, I think he still knows that he has so much more to offer to the game with the ball. Couldn’t think of a better bloke to be able to pass on the knowledge of fast bowling to the guys we have with us at the moment.”
However, Ben Stokes also confirmed that Dan Lawrence has been kept on standby for Ben Duckett, who is expecting the birth of his first child sometime during the Trent Bridge Test as well.
“There’s a plan in place for Ben and his partner. We’ll just have to make a decision if it was to happen before the game started. If anything happens throughout the Test match, Ben will just go and come back into the team. He’s obviously desperate to play at his home ground but the message from me and Baz is family always comes first. Whatever decision you end up making, you’ll get the support of me and Baz,” he added.
“It was a very, very good team performance (in the first Test). We want to go there and peform at least to the same level if not better. When you dominate the game like we did last week, it’s hard to go back and think where we could improve. I was really happy with how things went last week but we’re always looking to put better performances as we go on. If we can put up a better performance than we did last week, we’ll be in a very good shape,” he again shared.
“We know that West Indies are a very, very proud team. We’ve always had competition against them. Last week what happened, we’re not taking into consideration how the rest of the week will go. International sports is a great leveller, we know that. We can’t take how last week played out for us into what this week is going to offer,” he further stated.
However, Ben Stokes heaped praise on Atkinson’s performance in his debut Test and he is excited to see two speedsters – Atkinson and Wood – bowling from either end in Nottingham as well.
“If you see the way Gus bowled last week, not only with his 12 wickets but finding another bowler who can bowl 87-89 miles an hour is very exciting, the prospect of watching Gus Atkinson running in from one end and Mark Wood from the other. First time I saw Gus live was at the World Cup last year in India. He just had all the attributes of a very, very good bowler. A lot of it is to do with the Dukes ball, how it has behaved. There has not actually been that much movement in the air with the new ball. It’s generally been off the surface, hitting the seam, and Gus is a very good exponent of that. At 10-12 overs you get a rough on one side and that is when it really starts to swing, so that is where me and Woody come in. Woody bowling at 94mph with the ball swinging is going to be tough for anyone,” Ben Stokes concluded.
