Chris Woakes: England's high-class seamer hiding in plain sight

NICK FRIEND: In the 12 overs he has bowled since his recall, he has taken three wickets at a cost of just 44 runs: an economy rate – freakish, by anyone’s standards, of just 3.66. He is yet to concede 15 runs in a game

What a bowler Chris Woakes is. We could leave it there, really.

If it weren’t for injuries to Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes, there is every chance he wouldn’t be with England at the moment, instead watching on at home ahead of the Ashes on a rest period, which feels like where the 32-year-old has spent most of the last 18 months.

He is some cricketer to have not playing much cricket: a remarkable, remarkably underutilised cricketer. This was just his 12th T20I appearance, and his fourth since a hiatus between now and the winter of 2015. That isn’t to criticise England’s white-ball planning nor, certainly not, to question Eoin Morgan’s captaincy.

Rather, it says so much for the clarity of thought aboard this juggernaut that nine of the eleven players who featured in Woakes’ final appearance before what many might have assumed to be the end of his T20I career, on November 30, 2015, are involved in their current World Cup squad.

Morgan, to his credit, has suggested on multiple occasions that Woakes was never far from his mind in the interim. Like in the case of Tymal Mills, just because they weren’t selected for primarily meaningless bilateral series, that didn’t mean they were out of contention. And that makes sense in the context of how careful – often overly so, many have believed in the last two years – England have been in protecting Woakes.

Despite being named as his country’s player of the year for 2020, he then missed 11 Tests in a row through a mixture of rotation, isolation and injury, including one period of exile caused by a bruised heel suffered when he fell down a set of stairs.

But English cricket has needed no reminder of Woakes’ white-ball skillset: his spell with the new ball in the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup still stands out as one of the greatest by an Englishman.

^{Chris Woakes has an economy rate of just 3.66 since returning to the T20I fold}

That performance – and this one in Abu Dhabi, where England hammered Bangladesh with the kind of ruthless efficiency that has typified the very best displays of the Morgan Era – was extra-special in the way that it highlighted quite how far he has come in an England shirt.

It feels so long ago now that Woakes was that fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked seamer, questioned by several observers as perhaps half a yard too slow for international cricket and a touch too nice. These days, he is a chiselled, world-class performer: statistically an all-time great at home and improving, not without his challenges, abroad.

In the 12 overs he has bowled since his recall, he has taken three wickets at a cost of just 44 runs: an economy rate – freakish, by anyone’s standards, of just 3.66. He is yet to concede 15 runs in a game. There will be tougher challenges to come than Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and West Indies, whose implosion in England’s tournament opener was set in motion by Woakes’ slower ball that accounted for Evin Lewis.

But the transition has been quite stark: these last four matches have been the most economical of his England career. And yet, between 2011 – when Stuart Broad was his captain against Australia on the limited-over leg of the winter’s Ashes-winning tour – and 2015, he took seven wickets in eight games and four times travelled at 10 runs per over.

In the intervening six years, England might not have picked him, but Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals all saw fit to sign him up for Indian Premier League stints. Not all of those went according to plan, but their collective admiration acted as a decent reminder of how highly thought of he is even thousands of miles beyond Birmingham.

He has never been rapid but remains quick enough and – more importantly – sufficiently skilful to locate any assistance and exploit it to the max.

^{Jason Roy made a half century for England in reply}

At one stage against Bangladesh, he even slipped in a couple of short balls, one of which floored Afif Hossain, with the other bouncing out Shakib Al Hasan, who was terrifically caught by Adil Rashid at short fine leg, a position – and this may sound absurd – in which he has come to specialise.

There wasn’t much swing this afternoon for England’s seamers, but it has been one of the hallmarks of these early stages: Shaheen Shah Afridi, most famously, hooped two booming inswingers to dismiss Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul, while in the first group stage, Papua New Guinea’s Kabua Morea found some prodigious movement with his slower ball to clean up Kyle Coetzer.

It has made Woakes – such a high-quality opening bowler – all the more important, with his batting still to be called upon. This was one of the better pitches that this tournament is likely to see, too. Soon, his cutters will become more prominent – Lewis, of course, can attest to their potency. He was mindful – and Bangladesh failed to take notice themselves – not to err full, where Jason Roy later made hay.

Roy, who made 61 in reply, was named as player of the match – a prize that he acknowledged might have belonged in the hands of his bowling attack, who are making life quite comfortable so far for Morgan’s men, with Woakes to the fore.

RELATED STORIES

Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes set up comfortable victory for England against Bangladesh