Chris Woakes has worked harder than most to make it in international cricket so it is pleasing that little more than three weeks before the start of the World Cup, he is establishing himself as England’s most reliable one-day bowler.
It has been a tough road for the 25-year-old, who was written off as too slow for the international game following his Test debut against Australia at The Oval in 2013. That match is best remembered for Simon Kerrigan’s difficult debut, when the Lancashire spinner was brutally punished by Shane Watson and colleagues.
While Kerrigan is still recovering from that ordeal, Woakes has worked hard behind the scenes to put on the “yard of pace” all seam bowlers strive for. As a result Woakes’s fastest deliveries have increased from 81 mph to 87mph in the past 18 months, a substantial improvement.
No wonder England, keen to find a long-term successor to Jimmy Anderson, the ageing talisman of their attack, are putting their faith in Woakes by handing him the new ball and giving him the responsibility of bowling at the death.
It is a challenge he is relishing. Having played the final three Tests against India last summer – matches England won to come from behind and claim the series 3-1 – Woakes has appeared in his country’s last eight ODIs, his longest run in the team.
England are reaping the rewards, with a six-wicket haul in Sri Lanka before Christmas making him the only English bowler to achieve the feat twice. Woakes had first done it against Australia in Brisbane four years ago during his debut international series. With a return due to the Gabba on Tuesday, where England face India in their second match of the Tri-Series, Woakes again impressed with four for 40 during Friday’s three-wicket defeat by Australia in Sydney.
“I hope I’m establishing myself,” he says. “Sri Lanka was good for me and I felt like I staked a claim there and I’m trying to continue it here. It is nice to know that I’ve performed at international level now. I’ve been in and out and haven’t known if I was going to play or not. It does help if you know you’ve got a good chance of playing. It’s a confidence booster.”
As is the happy knack of taking wickets, Woakes with 30 in ODIs over the past year at a shade under 30 runs apiece. “It kind of happens in one-day cricket at times,” he says. “You go through spells when you don’t look like taking a wicket and then they come in clusters. You just keep telling yourself to keep on hammering your lengths and fortunately enough I’ve picked up wickets.”
The increase in pace has been key to that success. “It was a gradual process,” says Woakes, who alongside Stuart Broad and Anderson must now be a certainty for England’s World Cup opener against Australia in Melbourne next month. “I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, starting with Graeme Welch at Warwickshire and Kevin Shine [the England & Wales Cricket Board’s lead bowling coach] at Loughborough. There were a few technical issues and I also feel now I’m more energetic in my run up. So there has been hard work and it’s good to see the rewards.”
Anderson missed the opening match of the Tri-Series with the knee injury that had kept him out of the Sri Lanka tour. But the 32-year-old is expected to return against India. “We’re looking forward to getting Jimmy back, he’s our No1 asset,” Woakes says. “He’s been England’s best bowler for a long time.”
Woakes and the rest of England’s squad are sharing their hotel in Brisbane with the Iran and South Korea football teams, who are in town for the Asian Cup.
But it was the Birmingham-born bowler’s own football skills that took centre stage during the final warm-up match in Canberra last week, when he rescued a botched attempt to take a regulation catch by kicking the ball into his hands to dismiss Lega Siaka of the Prime Minister’s XI.
“I made a bit of a meal of it,” he says. “As soon as it rolled down my leg, I tried to kick the ball to get it up. Fortunately, it came back to me and it stuck. I’m an Aston Villa fan, they could do with me at the moment.”
For now, though, Villa will have to wait given Woakes appears essential to any hopes England have of success at the World Cup and beyond.