Posted by We lost a few things to the London weather yesterday: most obviously 20-odd overs, which is no big deal because they can make up the time on days two, three, four and five; far more significantly, Chris Woakes fell victim to the wet, soft, slippy outfield.
Woakes had already expressed his displeasure with the Oval turf even before it moved his whole arm from where it is supposed to be. Collecting a ball near the boundary in the morning session, he turned to throw, but then didn’t. With water literally splashing up around him with each footstep, he instead conveyed the words, “Oh come on! FFS!” with crystal clear body language.
His issue was presumably that the ball would get wet and soft, but this turned out to be the least of his concerns. Diving after another ball, later in the day, he encountered a surface equal parts slippery and spongy. That doesn’t sound so terrible from a diving on the ground perspective, but it does mean some body parts move faster than others and strange and damaging forces ensue.
After surviving four Tests of toil on sun-baked flatties, a weary Woakes had been downed by the green seamer. That leaves Mohammed Siraj as the last quick bowler unrested or uninjured – although he hasn’t yet made his way onto the pitch in this match, so there’s still no guarantee any of them will make it through this brutal series.
Head and shoulders
Last week, former world champion road cyclist, Julian Alaphilippe, dislocated his shoulder halfway through a stage of the Tour de France. After getting someone to pop it back in again, he caught back up and outsprinted what he thought was the front group. He then celebrated his “win” tragically ignorant of the fact two riders had already finished ahead of him because his radio hadn’t survived the crash.
During the 2022 edition of the race, five-time grand tour winner Primoz Roglic dislocated his shoulder in a crash and popped it back in himself so that he could carry on. “I do have a technique, like this, to pull down and try to put it back in,” he explained. He’s developed this on account of how frequently the damn thing displaces itself on contact with tarmac or snow (Primoz used to be a ski jumper). Roglic raced on for another week, finishing third on a summit finish and most significantly forming one half of a double act that actually managed to crack Tadej Pogacar – a feat that only grows rarer with each passing year. For these guys, pain isn’t just an emotion, it’s a defining aspect of the job.
You might conclude from this that the dislocation of a shoulder really ain’t no thang, but (a) Tour de France cyclists are not normal people and (b) fast bowling is not a normal movement.
Fast bowling is a sprinting, leaping, whirling, twisting invitation to injury at the best of times. Even if it’s not the ‘doing arm‘ that was dislocated, the range of movement required of it is still intimidatingly great – especially if you want to retain the pinpoint accuracy that ideally needs to be married with release of a ball at 80-odd mph.
The NHS says: “It usually takes up to 12 weeks to recover from a dislocated shoulder. It may take up to 16 weeks to fully return to playing some sports, but for some recovery can take longer.”
Maybe it wasn’t a full dislocation of course, but looking at Woakes walking off, that doesn’t seem so significant a distinction. We did something similar to our shoulder last September and it still hurts now – sometimes like hell.
Maybe Woakes can bowl again in this match, but if so, it’s probably only in the same way that Ben Duckett can bowl. (Once again – for no reason other than that it’s funny – here is Ben Duckett’s first wicket as a professional cricketer and here is his only other one.)
What next?
It’s hard not to really, really feel for Woakes here. After spending the majority of his career square-pegging as an old ball bowler, he belatedly reached the front of the new ball queue having patiently waited behind what turned out to be the two longest-serving opening bowlers in the history of Test cricket. At the start of this summer, he found himself pretty much on his own in a world of first-change bowlers, whereupon he was handed a pudding of a ball and a slew of insipid pitches with all the life baked out of them by the driest spring in 50 years.
But then – finally! – green grass and cloud cover. Would have been nice to have seen it before he had 167 overs in his legs, but hey, better late than never.
Woakes has bowled better than his figures suggest this series, but after failing to take so many “opportunities” he’ll have wanted some cheaper wickets at the Oval to help persuade captain and coach to fly him to Australia later in the year.
While one wicket for 46 runs was shaping up as another somewhat ungenerous statistical return on his efforts, he still had a good chance of improving it. But then suddenly he didn’t.
At least he saved a run.
Diving to try to save boundaries is so stupid, usually fails, at best saves 1 or 2 runs, high risk of injury.
No idea where England’s bowling goes from here. Atkinson looks decent. The rest look either toothless, knackered or injured. Feels like it needs ripping up and starting again.
I mean, do they really want Woakes in Australia? 16 wickets in 7 matches at 52 in his previous tours. I feel it gives the selectors an easy out to just not select him at all.
Well this is it, isn’t it? He obviously won’t have wanted to offer them that. It’s been reported that they wanted him in the squad though even if he probably wasn’t lined up for the first team.
There’s talk of surgery and all sorts, so the question now is more whether he ever plays Test cricket again.