Cliff Notes – England quicks await India acid test after two-year changing of the guard
- England’s seam attack faces a pivotal challenge in the fifth Test against India, marking a significant transition following the retirements of Anderson and Broad.
- With Stokes absent due to injury, the new trio of Tongue, Atkinson, and Overton must step up to secure England’s first series victory over India since 2018.
England quicks await India acid test after two-year changing of the guard
Wednesday was James Anderson’s 43rd birthday. Thursday, day one of the fifth Test against India, will be two years since Stuart Broad’s last day of Test cricket. And over the next five days, England will take their most significant steps yet into that post-Anderson-Broad world.
This will be the 17th match without either, but the first home series decider since that Broad farewell. England’s new-look four-pronged right-arm seam attack has been picked to deliver victory on a pitch with extra live grass but, with five days of low cloud forecast as well, there’ll be plenty opportunity for this attack to be judged by the standards of those bygone legends.
What wistfulness there remains for England’s most prolific seamers, 1,308 dismissals between them, is mitigated by Anderson’s ongoing summer with Lancashire and Broad’s musings on Sky Sports. The game has moved on. The country too. But a necessary shuffling of England’s deck after a gruelling fourth Test has brought the ongoing job of replacing them on the field into focus.
Jofra Archer (two Tests) and Brydon Carse (four) are having to rest because of their workloads. This highlights both this series’ condensed schedule and the durability of Anderson and Broad. It is a quality often lost amid the talk of their longevity.
Anderson has played all five matches in nine different series. Broad has done the same in 10. Chris Woakes will do so for the first time this week at the age of 36.
Woakes, however, is something of an anomaly. He’s the renaissance man of this attack, a player who wrote his worth in the shadows of Anderson and Broad for 11 years before being tasked with leading the attack out of it.
May this be his last stop in the shepherding role? It is not beyond the realms of possibility that this will be Woakes’ 62nd and final cap, with an Ashes tour of Australia to follow. Arguably his biggest task has now arrived; he’ll need to dig even deeper after 167 overs across four Tests, and guide Josh Tongue, Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton through to the other side. Starting with a first series victory over India since 2018.
James Anderson and Stuart Broad inspect the ball AFP/Getty Images
It has been a peculiar three weeks for that trio. Tongue was left out for Archer after two Tests. At the time, he was the leading wicket-taker in the series with 11 at 33.63.
Atkinson, added to the squad from the third Test, was not selected at either at Lord’s or Old Trafford, and subsequently released to Surrey who passed him on to their second team. Neither country nor county were willing to risk him this early, despite the fact he had been passed fully fit from a hamstring injury sustained during the one-off Test against Zimbabwe.
Much like England, Surrey were also wary of adding too much risk to their attack against Yorkshire, given they were already playing Overton. In that instance, country and county had been in sync, an agreement from Surrey with England that Overton would get game-time having not been needed for the first two games.
In a series of immense toil, both are fresh, while Tongue’s 81 overs constitute just 11% of the mammoth 691.2 overs that England’s quicks have sent down in the course of four Tests. And even Tongue has had a month off, barring 22 overs for Nottinghamshire last week.
Their jobs, however, will be harder than those they are replacing, given Ben Stokes’ absence. England’s captain, the standout bowler of the series, was still wrestling with the decision not to play as early as the start of the team’s training session on Tuesday morning.
Gus Atkinson will be part of England’s fast bowling attack at the Oval Getty Images
Stokes’ grade three shoulder tear had ruled him out from bowling, but he was still on course to play as a batter until further medical advice and guidance from head coach Brendon McCullum ushered him towards a sensible decision. Even then, his biggest deliberation was the exact make-up of the seam attack that will attempt to make up the difference.
“You go through so many different scenarios with potentials of the game,” Stokes said.
“Turning up here and seeing the wicket, a lot greener and bit more live grass than the other wickets, we probably would have gone down the route of four seamers even if I played and couldn’t bowl.”
The very fact that Tongue, Atkinson and Overton have been entrusted to punch this last ticket will give them some encouragement. As usual when Ollie Pope deputises, Stokes will oversee everything off the field. But his faith in this trio, all of whom were handed debuts on his watch, will only go so far.
It is worth stepping back and appreciating just how tricky it has been to navigate the land since Anderson’s and Broad’s retirement. Men’s managing director Rob Key was the key driver in assembling an array of quicks that could not just soften the blow from moving on from two legends, but ensure that England would never have to ask too much from their new batch. That aim, however, has proved nigh on impossible to deliver.
Editor’s Picks
2 Related
Injuries to the likes of Mark Wood and Olly Stone – and Atkinson, for a bit – shallowed the pool. Others, like Matthew Potts, Sam Cook (who debuted against Zimbabwe) and Dillon Pennington (unused despite being part of the squad at the start of last season) are not trusted enough to be considered. Saqib Mahmood and Matt Fisher – ironically the two drafted in for 2022’s tour of West Indies when England tried to force Anderson and Broad out – are now further adrift.
Then there are those given recognition, but nothing more for now. Josh Hull, handed a surprise debut in this corresponding fixture last summer, has showed signs of progression for Leicestershire without looking like being in contention any time soon. It remains too early for the young Hampshire duo of Sonny Baker and Eddie Jack, even if both have been pushed – the former handed a development contract after the Lions tour to Australia at the start of the year, the latter training with England ahead of the first Test after impressing for the England Lions. Even someone like 29-year-old Luke Wood, Lancashire’s left-arm quick, has been part of conversations without anything tangible, having piqued McCullum’s interest upon a return to the T20Is against the West Indies.
For now, it all rests on a trio coming in cold to the cauldron. Their experiences at international level will offer them a crutch – Atkinson’s record-breaking 2024, Tongue’s impressive start in 2023’s Ashes, and the management’s clear regard for Overton as a multi-format cricketer.
But this is all very different. And by proxy, a chance to take more meaningful steps into the unknown.