So the England squad is taking the Costa Brava plane and is off to sunny Spain. Their plan, one trusts, is not “to chat a matador” or “meet señoritas by the score” (rest assured that research was required to recall these lyrics). The goal is a little more mundane than that: to meet the new coach, Trevor Bayliss, and no doubt to chat at length between a few physical jerks.
The names of the fortunate 14 are obviously significant. The England hierarchy is sticking to the same batsmen, which means that Gary Ballance is still on board. However, there are interesting additions to the bowling attack and one notable absentee (though Chris Jordan is not currently fit). Steven Finn is back and Derbyshire’s Mark Footitt is in for the first time.
It has taken a long time for Footitt to get this far. When he was a teenager at Nottingham, taking wickets for England Under-19s, he was one to watch. He is now 29 and after almost a decade of cricketing torment only in the past two seasons has he resurfaced as a potential international. There had been the injuries, loss of form and release by Nottinghamshire before the discovery of a happy haven at Derbyshire.
Footitt is fast and left-arm and traditionally England have struggled to unearth bowlers of that type at the highest level. In the game’s history no left-arm paceman has taken 100 Test wickets for England. The top three, a wonderfully contrasting trio, comprises Bill Voce (Harold Larwood’s partner in the 20s and 30s), Ryan Sidebottom and JK Lever. Left-armers offer welcome variety and the good ones can take wickets in clumps when everything clicks and the ball swings late in the air.
Think Trent Boult or Mitchell Starc. Theirs is a mercurial art and Footitt is not the first cricketer to note: “If I had known what I know now when I was 20 I think the world would be my oyster.”
Graeme Welch, his mentor at Derby, is more unreservedly cheerful: “He’s international class. I’ve run out of breath speaking to them about him.” Certainly the ingredients are there. Footitt is pacy – quicker than David Willey, for example – and on the good days the ball swings late. However, a touch of realism is also in order. He is not the reincarnation of Wasim Akram.
Footitt is still uncapped; Wasim began playing Test cricket at 18. Wasim could bat; Footitt cannot. In this discipline he is worse than Alan Mullally, England’s fourth most prolific left-arm paceman.
Finn is far more familiar and has demonstrated his rehabilitation in the ODIs, which has not been a comfortable series for bowlers. “Nowadays an ODI is like playing a long T20 match,” says Finn, who has stood up to the barrage better than most. He would, however, like to grip a red ball for England again.
“I’d love to play in the Ashes. That is the pinnacle of what you can achieve as an England cricketer and my last Test was against Australia two years ago,” says Finn. He was a gloomy passenger when England toured Australia 18 months ago but has worked hard to get back into contention.
“When I came back from that tour we stripped everything back and went right back to basics. I learned a lot about my bowling and my action in that time.” He says that he has never been as consistent as he is now; he acknowledges that he has bowled faster. “I’d love to get that high-end pace back 100% all the time, which I had when I was taking wickets a few years ago.” However, Finn is smiling again, enjoying his cricket and much more dependable.
The probability is that he will be competing with Mark Wood for the final bowling slot at Cardiff unless Footitt or Liam Plunkett, the other paceman in the squad, makes a huge impression in Spain and beyond.
Clearly Moeen Ali remains the first-choice spinner despite poor early-season form and a shortage of bowling even when he returns to county cricket. He exceeded expectations for England in that role last summer; a bit more patience may be required in 2015. For certain the Australian batsmen will be minded to be very aggressive against whichever English spinner is selected on the basis that they are all vulnerable and can be hit out of the attack.
The notion of replacing Moeen with Adil Rashid is unlikely to have detained the selectors for long. Currently there may be a good argument for Rashid to play as a second spinner but not as the solitary one.
