Emerging England attack nurturing skills needed in Ashes battle

This was a day that sealed another series win for England — their 14th in their past 21 home series, as against one defeat, since 2014 — but more importantly provided just the sort of test that England’s management would have wanted their refashioned bowling attack to be put through. A flat pitch, an old ball, a hot sun … and a lot of hard yakka.
In the post-Stuart Broad and James Anderson world, it has been necessary to find out just what the next generation are made of — if they really have what it will take when the opposition are stronger and the situation more pressured. Will they be able to do it against India next summer and in Australia at the end of next year?
With Ben Stokes injured and unavailable, there could be no turning to the best old-ball bowler England possess to break the stubborn resistance put up by the Sri Lankan batsmen. Stokes, remember, was the man who broke the biggest stand against England this summer of 175 between Kavem Hodge and Alick Athanaze at Trent Bridge.
Without Mark Wood too, there could be no calling upon the fastest bowler in the country, who bowled the most devastating spell of the past two months on the final day at Edgbaston.
So, over to the new boys. They could hardly have done better. In the space of 90 minutes, Olly Stone, Shoaib Bashir and Gus Atkinson — specialists in pace, spin and seam — combined to remove four players with 50 Test hundreds between them to give their team a mighty shove towards the finish line, Stone setting the ball rolling with a hostile, inventive burst shortly before lunch.
Credit, too, to Ollie Pope because it needed some imaginative fields to disrupt the batsmen’s poise.
Atkinson, of course, is the big find. With four more wickets on day four, he raised his tally in five Tests to 33, an astonishing haul for someone in their first season of Test cricket (not to mention the small matter of a maiden first-class century earlier in this game, which means he became the first seam bowler to score a hundred and take a five-for in the same Test since Jacques Kallis in 2002).
It may be worth noting that some others who began like meteors did not necessarily find life straightforward thereafter — Dominic Cork, touted as an all-rounder who could fill Ian Botham’s shoes, took 26 wickets in his first summer with England in 1995, and Ollie Robinson 28 in his debut season of 2021 — but Atkinson appears to have the temperament to take the attendant fuss in his stride.
As someone not overly reliant on swing, which tends to be less in evidence abroad than in England, Atkinson’s skills — a probing wicket-to-wicket line and hitting the seam hard — ought to translate well to foreign climes. His priority is to stay fit and strong enough for the demanding work that lies ahead.
There have also been encouraging signs of Bashir imparting more over-spin and therefore dip on the ball, a key asset if a finger-spinner is to trouble well-set batsmen.
All being well, England will be planning for Stokes, Wood and Jofra Archer to be in Australia, but these past few weeks Atkinson, Bashir and Stone have done their chances of being involved in the Ashes no harm at all.
Whether Chris Woakes can make a case, given his advancing years and his poor record overseas, remains to be seen, but the likelihood is that he will go on the tour to Pakistan in October and be given the opportunity to show what he can do with the old ball. Those three Tests will be the next challenge for this group of bowlers on what are likely to be some of the flattest pitches they will encounter.
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The ideal run-out for an England attack before a tour of Australia would be a series in South Africa, where pitches tend to be similarly bouncy, but England are not scheduled to go there again for Tests until 2026-27 after an absence of seven years.
Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Stokes will be delighted that their decision to throw more responsibility the way of so many inexperienced bowlers has paid off. Going into this summer, Atkinson had never previously played Test cricket and Bashir had featured only three times, in India. Stone also had three Test caps to his name, and Matthew Potts only six.
For many years England’s ability to win at home almost as a matter of course has long been problematic because the temptation was simply to send the same bowlers abroad each winter in the expectation that they would replicate the same form, only to discover that in tougher conditions they could not do so.
Finally they appear to be breaking that cycle by backing bowlers who have the skills that should work abroad and trust them to still deliver at home.
English optimism must be tempered by the fact that West Indies and Sri Lanka both came into their series here cold, having not played Tests for several months and on the back of only one warm-up match.
Under-resourced and under-paid, England’s opponents — bar Australia and India — come here with little hope or expectation. Since 2017, England have won 21 of their 30 home matches against these teams, and 20 of those 30 games ended in three or four days. No wonder Sunday’s attendance was a little thin.