Shortly after the abbreviated, perpetually exciting Test match in Birmingham last week, the mood was summed up by a watching Australian colleague. “I’m really rapt for Steve Finn,” he said as the formalities were completed, using his country’s colloquialism for occasions when they are especially delighted.
Finn is the sort of player who transcends conventional niceties, an obvious gent. But the response to his eight wickets and man-of-the-match award in the third Investec Test also demonstrated the genuine sentiment that it is desirable for sportsmen to fulfil themselves and their talent properly.
Make no mistake, Finn had been to the bowler’s equivalent of hell and back. From being unable to hit a barn door at 20 paces, he had gone to dismissing eight Australians, two of them in two balls in a commanding second-innings spell, as well as claiming the scalps of Steve Smith and Michael Clarke in both innings.
It had been two years and 13 days and 23 matches since his most disturbing Test appearance. In the intervening period it had been possible to think that it might have been his last. His action had broken down, his self-belief evaporated.
The road back to this point has been long and hard, and demanded an attention to rebuilding detail aimed at restoring both. He can only trust that this, at the age of 26, will make him a better version of his old self.
“I hope so,” he said at Trent Bridge. “Do you know what? To be quite frank, I am sick of talking in the past because that has been and gone, and every time I have sat down I’ve talked about what has happened in the past – ‘How do you do this? How do you do that?’ That is not even in my head any more.
“All I think about is what is going to happen in the future and try to keep the fact that I have been bowling well and try to keep that going. That is what is occupying my mind at the moment. I can think of what has happened in the past but I’m trying my best not to do that because I’m in a good place and want to keep it going.”
Ashes 2015 Third Test in pictures
Finn’s painstaking return – after going back to basics in the truest sense – has been well chronicled by now. He bowled errantly in the opening Test of the 2013 Ashes series and was dropped. It was to become much worse and, although he was selected for the Ashes tour the following winter, he was never in the frame for a game.
Eventually he was sent home. He started again. But even in the months since, even watching him play for England’s one-day team, it has been clear that something was still missing, that it might never be the same as it was again, that Finn was destined to play out his career wondering what might have been.
But then came last week at Edgbaston, when the weeks and months of practice and putting that practice into matches came off in the biggest arena of all. For a few overs on the afternoon of the second day, Finn was irrepressible. It was as well as he has ever bowled for England in any of his 24 Test matches. Suddenly it makes the grievous loss of Jimmy Anderson for the match at Trent Bridge starting tomorrow easier to bear.
Finn made his Test debut for England on their tour of Bangladesh in 2010, when he was flown over as a replacement. Almost from the start, without being the finished article, he had a proclivity for taking wickets.
Only seven England bowlers who have taken more than 10 wickets and played in more than 10 matches have taken them at a faster rate than Finn’s 98, one every 46 balls, and no one else since Frank Tyson’s brief, spectacular time in the sun – a wicket every 45 balls – 56 years ago. The others were all operating in eras that ended before the First World War.
Finn is slightly miffed at how his misfortunes and his travails in the nets in Australia late in 2013 have been reported.
“It is still frustrating how some of it gets covered because some of it’s not true,” he said. “People have written of how I had the yips in Australia but I had a net the day before I came back to England and I let go of every ball fine. I have got video footage if people want to see it.”
Still, he does not deny that he went searching for a golden nugget that did not exist, that he had to seek the guidance and help of the two people he trusted most, Richard Johnson, of Middlesex, and Kevin Shine, of the ECB. This is not to criticise in any way the work of David Saker, then England’s bowling coach.
It was Saker who suggested to Finn that he shorten his run, after which the problems started in earnest. But all Saker was trying to do was eradicate a problem that then existed, which involved Finn knocking off the bails in his delivery stride, which happened so often that it led to a change in the law.
No longer a dead ball as it had been for years, it is now a no-ball. Finn’s Law. The idea now is that it is never infringed again by the man it was named after.
Ups and downs: Bowlers' careers
Steven Finn
March 2010 Test debut against Bangladesh in Chittagong, taking two wickets.
December Dropped for final two Tests of Ashes series win after Perth loss.
March 2013 Plays six Tests in two years before return for New Zealand tour.
July Dropped after first Ashes Test and does not return for two years.
July 2015 Takes eight wickets in comfortable Ashes win at Edgbaston.
Career record Tests 24 Wickets 98@28.19. Best 6-79 5w 5 10w 0
Mitchell Johnson
November 2007 Test debut against Sri Lanka in Brisbane, taking four wickets.
December 2008 Takes eight first innings wickets against South Africa in Perth.
July 2009 Ridiculed at Lord’s after ceding 200 runs as Aussies lose heavily. Named ICC Cricketer of the Year.
July 2013 Plays just four Tests in two years and dropped for Ashes tour.
January 2014 Finishes series with 37 wickets as Australia reclaim Ashes. Helps side reclaim No 1 Test ranking after win in South Africa.
July 2015 Takes just two wickets in each defeat at Cardiff and Edgbaston and taunted by fans. Takes 300th Test wicket.
Career record Tests 69 Wickets 301@27.78. Best 8-61 5w 12 10w 3
Steven Finn is an Investec Test cricket ambassador. For more on Investec private banking, visit: investec.co.uk/pb
