Chris Woakes, man of the match in the turbulent, tense and ultimately tied first one-day international against Sri Lanka on Tuesday, says he now feels established as an England cricketer and can see no reason why he and Ben Stokes cannot thrive in the same team when the all-rounder, whose knee injury presented Woakes with his chance this summer, returns.
Before the Trent Bridge opener Eoin Morgan, England’s one-day captain, called the absence of Stokes for the five-match series a conundrum, and while his options were noticeably limited in the first innings by having only five bowlers, a stand of 138 between Woakes and Jos Buttler turned a crisis, sitting 82 for six, into an eventual near-miss that demonstrated the value of batting deep.
Woakes, who claimed two for 56 with the ball and sat 95 not out at the non-striker’s end as the No10, Liam Plunkett, crashed his dramatic last-ball six, has come of age as an international cricketer this season, first in the Test-series win, where he was consistently the quickest bowler on show and claimed eight wickets in two matches, and now the initial skirmish in white-ball cricket.
For a talent that some feared might remain forever unfulfilled following an underwhelming final Test in South Africa over the winter, the 27-year-old’s revival has been heartening for his supporters and a reminder that some players need time to mature. With 60 caps across all formats since his debut in 2011 the all-rounder is an investment that is starting to pay out.
“I feel in decent form at the minute and I feel like my best years are ahead of me. I feel more established as an England cricketer,” said Woakes. “Whenever you get an opportunity you have to grab it with both hands, whether it’s form that has got you in or an injury to someone else. My situation has been fortunate [through an injury to Stokes] but you still have to take it.”
Stokes, who underwent an operation at the end of last month to clean up torn cartilage in his left knee, is ahead of schedule in his recovery and is now hoping to receive the all-clear from the England medical staff over the coming days to play a league match for Newcastle Cricket Club this Saturday as a specialist batsman and slip fielder. The return of England’s premier all-rounder for the first Test with Pakistan at Lord’s on 14 July would present the selectors with a dilemma, with Woakes suddenly vying with Steven Finn, for the third seamer’s spot, as opposed to the man he replaced.
His bowling, for which he spent two years adding the requisite pace by adjusting his leading arm and adding greater zip to his run-up, could easily earn him the nod as a bowler alone on current form.
Woakes said: “I would like to think Ben and I can play in the same team but that’s down to the selectors and coaches. The workload is very high in international cricket, especially for all-rounders like myself and Ben, so I suppose there will be times we rotate. If that’s the case, so be it. I’ll be happy just to do a job for the team.”
One statistic that stuck out at Trent Bridge on Tuesday – a match that made the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach feel like an airport monorail - was that Woakes’ contribution with the bat was not just his first half-century for England in 50-over cricket but his first in List A cricket overall, an anomaly for an all-rounder with 18 first-class half-centuries for Warwickshire as well as nine hundreds.
His unbeaten 95, which initially complemented Buttler’s 93 before he rallied the remainder of the tail as Plunkett launched one final missile into the night sky, was the highest score by a No8 batsman in one-day cricket, surpassing the 84 made by Kenya’s Thomas Odoyo against Bangladesh in Nairobi 10 years ago. Woakes claimed the thought of three figures never entered his mind.
He said: “I haven’t had many opportunities to play a long innings in ODI cricket because I go in at the end and try to have a dip – that’s been the case with Warwickshire. I should have more 50s for England so it’s nice to get that monkey off my back.
“When I got told it was the highest by a No8 I was surprised. You would have thought someone had smacked a century from there. It’s brilliant to have that and hopefully I can beat it. It would have been lovely to get a hundred but the only target was the runs required for the target going down, rather than mine going up.”
The two teams now head to Woakes’s home ground, Edgbaston, for second one-day international. Sri Lanka are sweating on a hamstring injury to their captain, Angelo Mathews – he will undergo a fitness test on Thursday – and the message from his England counterpart, Morgan, is that his team must cut out the top- order batting he described as “rusty”.
Woakes said: “We spoke about the collapse and we don’t want to be losing wickets like that. Maybe we could have protected our wickets a little bit more – when chasing that sort of total our best batsmen should face the majority of balls. But we believe we can win a game from any position. OK, at 82 for six you are not thinking about winning immediately but you always know a partnership can give you a sniff, which me and Jos did. But we can play better than that and hopefully it starts on Friday.”
