Category: England National Cricket

The Test stalwart on his surreal last stand at the Oval, his ‘shabby’ treatment by Rob Key and the vexed problem of cricket’s drinking culture

On a rainy October afternoon, after his 20th season as a professional cricketer, Chris Woakes sits down at Edgbaston’s indoor nets and thinks of the advice that helped him when he was 17 and about to start a career in this consuming sport. “The words came from my parents, particularly my dad, and it was to always be myself,” he says in his thoughtful way.

Woakes has just won his third County Championship with Warwickshire and he played 62 Tests for England, taking 192 wickets and scoring 2,034 runs. He also won two World Cups and experienced a range of England coaches, from Andy Flower to Brendon McCullum, and played for captains as different as Sir Alastair Cook, Eoin Morgan, Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

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• Bethell returns after injury; Carse frozen out

• Four-week trip includes 3 ODIs and 5 T20s

Eighteen-year-old Thomas Rew has earned his maiden call-up for England after being selected for the white-ball tour of Australia next month. Jacob Bethell is also fit to return after a knee injury but Brydon Carse remains frozen out.

Coming after the upcoming tri-series in Pakistan, the four-week trip features three one-day internationals and five Twenty20s. Fast bowlers Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue, Gus Atkinson and Sonny Baker will play in the ODIs that start on 13 November, before turning their attention to the Test tour of South Africa.

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• Robinson, Duckett and Smith get one-year deals

• Eric Simons hired as Test fast-bowling coach

Rob Key believes he can now “map out the next two years” for the England men’s teams, having handed out a record 39 central contracts and unveiled new split coaching setups under Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum that he hopes will produce homegrown candidates for the top roles in future.

The retirement of Ben Stokes mid-summer, plus Zak Crawley being dropped, has allowed Key, the England team director, to stretch the pot of money for player contracts further this year. Thirty main deals have been issued – up from 26 last year – while nine players have been handed development contracts that top up their county pay.

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Former Test batter and Afghanistan coach is taking the Lions abroad and is telling his players to ‘be smart’

Jonathan Trott pretty much entered Ashes folklore from the outset, scoring a series-winning century on his Test debut at the Oval back in 2009. Less spoken about, but just as relevant to the latest move in his upwardly mobile coaching career, is the first time he pulled on an England shirt two years earlier.

Drafted into the Twenty20 side for a low-key home series against West Indies, Trott knew only Ian Bell from Warwickshire and, out of his comfort zone, walked away with scores of nine and two. The difference two years on? Playing cricket in the finishing school of the Lions setup that he has recently taken charge of.

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Dial has shifted, especially for Fleming’s Test side, before winter tours of South Africa, Bangladesh and Australia

Last year, England’s winter started in New Zealand, where preparation for their first game in any format for nearly a month amounted to two relaxed training sessions, a cultural welcome ceremony involving local Māori elders and, before that, a team-bonding mini-break in Queenstown.

“Obviously there was a bit of golf played and a few drinks here and there and team meals and whatnot,” Harry Brook said of that trip. “It was just about trying to spend a bit of time together. They’ve got some amazing golf courses and we were lucky enough to get on a couple of them. A couple of the other lads managed to get out and enjoy Queenstown. Everybody had a lot of fun.”

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• Replaces Rehan Ahmed in ODI squad to Pakistan

• Archer rested for tri-series that begins on 18 October

Nearly nine years on from his solitary Test cap in Sydney comes an England recall for Mason Crane. The leg-spinner has been named in England’s squad for the one-day international tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. England will fly to Islamabad on 15 October for a round-robin mini-tournament that serves as preparation for next year’s 50-over World Cup. The three teams play each other twice in the group stage, before the top two meet for the final at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium on 31 October.

Jos Buttler will miss the trip due to his recent hamstring tear and Jofra Archer is being rested at the start of a busy winter. But there are returns for Adil Rashid and Sam Curran after injury and a spot for James Coles, while the most eye-catching move is Crane usurping Rehan Ahmed as the back-up wrist-spinner.

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Franchise tournament remains an enigma after an unexpectedly dramatic men’s international summer and a thrilling Championship title race

After pumping astronomical sums of money into English cricket, the headline act of the summer should probably have been the Hundred’s rebirth under private ownership. After all, the decks were relatively clear.

There was no Ashes series or Indian arm-wrestle in Test cricket to hog the limelight, rather a small-plates menu of touring teams. The Women’s T20 World Cup was on home soil, but for all that it outdid its 50-over equivalent in 2017 by way of engagement, the men’s football World Cup dominated. Plus, folks kind of knew Nat Sciver-Brunt’s England side was not quite ready to derail the Australian machine.

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The appointment of England white-ball teams’ specialist mentor has divided opinion but the man himself says he is loving being back in the dressing room

Kevin Pietersen insisted he is a “completely different” person these days as he sat down at Headingley – the ground where he declared “it’s tough being me in this dressing room” 14 years earlier – and spoke at length about his role as the new “specialist mentor” to England’s white-ball teams.

In the aftermath of a 16-run loss to Sri Lanka that sends this late summer one-day series into an Oval decider on Sunday, Pietersen also revealed that while not full-time – “I’ll be in and out” – his input may not be restricted to the challenge of winning the 50-over World Cup in South Africa next year. A home Ashes comes before that, the series that launched his career back in 2005, and discussions with Stephen Fleming, the incoming Test coach, and Joe Root have already taken place.

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Another crushing victory for England, their 14th in a row over Sri Lanka in T20, saw them secure the three series with a match to spare

England: 1 Jos Buttler (wk), 2 Aneruin Donald, 3 Harry Brook (capt), 4 Tom Banton, 5 Jordan Cox, 6 Will Jacks, 7 Jamie Overton, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Sonny Baker.

Sri Lanka: 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 Lahiru Udana, 3 Kamil Mishara (wk), 4 Kamindu Mendis, 5 Charith Asalanka (capt), 6 Dasun Shanaka, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Tharindu Ratnayake, 9 Dilshan Madushanka, 10 Dushmantha Chameera, 11 Eshan Malinga.

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While there’s a statistically significant chance it will all go south, KP’s mentorship could be a throwback to better days

At the end of his time as consultant to the England cricket setup Gilbert Enoka praised Brendon McCullum’s incredible work in healing the culture of his team. Enoka is best known as the architect of the no-dickheads policy in sport. This is basically Doctor Dickhead. Dickheads? He’s not having them.

“There wasn’t one dickhead in there,” Enoka announced, proudly. And history has shown this to be correct. All the evidence suggests the numerical value of dickheads in the England cricket team was something other than one. And yes, zero is not one. Fair point. But so are all the other numbers, the ones that go up the other way into plurals, multiples, an infinity of dickheads.

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• Former England batter starts role with white-ball teams

• Fleming also ‘right person’ to take Test team forward

Brendon McCullum has revealed that he was the driving force behind the recruitment of Kevin Pietersen as a specialist mentor to England’s white-ball teams and said the new arrival had specific orders to “look across the environment and challenge me”.

Pietersen spent his first day in the role monitoring training at the Utilita Bowl after delivering an address that had the players “buzzing”, according to McCullum, England’s white-ball coach.

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Ollie Robinson was dominant, with Harry Brook, Dan Lawrence and Mohammad Abbas also standing out

By the 99.94 Cricket Blog

Joe Root: 164 runs at 41.0; two catches

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Some have stepped to the fore during a period of uncertainty, while others appear to be struggling for form

Robinson started the first Test by taking three wickets in an over, started his final bowling innings by taking two in an over, and between showed extraordinary control and consistency. His skill has never been in doubt but his fitness and work ethic were, so much so that he made only one appearance in just under three years before the comeback this summer.

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New Test head coach’s arrival and Root’s calming influence as captain add to promising signs in the post-Stokes era

As Joe Root calmly ran the rule over the Test summer and reeled off the ways in which it had been “chaos”, “unusual” and “unsettling” for England, it felt telling that first among them was Ben Stokes calling time on his international career during a match and a series that were both still live at the time.

Cricketers announcing their retirement mid-game is nothing new. Heather Knight went on to do the same during the women’s Test at Lord’s two weeks later. Root is also too loyal to Stokes to question openly whether that scene-stealing exit before New Zealand’s win at Trent Bridge was entirely in keeping with his call for “selfless cricketers” four years earlier.

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After an early scare, Joe Root and Jordan Cox usher England to victory and a 3-0 clean sweep of Pakistan

Razaullah’s agent is giving it some welly on X – apparently his phone is ringing red. Razaullah was due to play for Cleethorpes in the Yorkshire Southern Premier League before:

“@TheRealPCBMedia come calling - sort his Passport out, and wing him over for @Edgbaston. He’s now made his mark. Franchises already showing interest. Our phones have blown up. Watch this space!”

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