Three matches into Bazball 2.0 and it’s all smiles for England.
You can only beat what’s put in front of you and against a relatively weak West Indies team, England proved their quality in all three matches to win by an innings and 114 runs at Lord’s, 241 runs at Trent Bridge and 10 wickets at Edgbaston.
The margins of victories mean it’s hard to really gauge the progress of this England team, or indeed if any progress has been made at all. This was a series they were expected to win three-nil - and they did.
“Really good,” was captain Ben Stokes’ simple assessment of how he felt the series had gone.
Of the players who have been involved in the England set-up before this series, little new was discovered, but where success was found was in the introduction of the newbies: Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir and Jamie Smith.
All three were eye-opening selections in their own ways. Smith and Bashir were second-choice at their counties, but picked as first choice for their country, while Atkinson - through timing if nothing else - was the first to audition as the heir to Anderson.
All three passed with flying colours. Atkinson finished as the player of the series after taking 22 wickets, nine clear of Jayden Seales in second place in the list of leading wicket-takers, Bashir became the youngest England cricketer to ever take a five-wicket haul in home conditions and Smith wowed with the bat and was solid with the gloves.
“Gus and Jamie Smith,” Stokes said of the two debutants, with Bashir having first played in India earlier this year. “In their debut series, I think they’ve both been absolutely phenomenal, and have performed above, I don’t know, what people were expecting them to do. [But] certainly not what we expected – that’s why we selected them and gave them the opportunity.
“Jamie obviously has put some unbelievable performances in with the bat but behind the stumps as well he’s been class. As a wicket-keeper you want to be unnoticed, that’s always a good thing.
“He seems to have everything as a player – he’s got the power game, he’s got the technique to get him through any tricky periods like we’ve seen on a couple of occasions. He’s a proper player.”
The most important thing the trio have brought to the side is structure. Smith, as wicketkeeper, appears to be the long-term solution for a position that has caused the England management headaches for close to a decade. Bashir, in being an attacking spinner capable of taking five-wicket hauls at home as well as away appears a lock for the foreseeable and the pace of Atkinson means he has received a similar blessing. For now, they are the chosen ones.
“I feel that something myself, Brendon McCullum, Rob Key and Luke Wright are good at is identifying something in a player that stands out,” Stokes said of the trio’s selection. “We went into detail about our reasons for selecting Bash for India, same again with Jamie. When you see something, you’ve got to back that.
“It’s nice to see those decisions pay off… It’s great for Gus and Jamie that their first series in international cricket in terms of Test matches, they know they can do it. They know they are capable of delivering in all different types of situations. It is going to hold them in good stead.”
England, and Stokes in particular, have made no secret of their current focus being as much on best preparing for the Ashes in 18 months as it is in the here and now. And core to that plan is to have a spinner they believe will succeed in Australian conditions and a high-pace bowling attack.
“I think again it shows how important pace is,” Stokes said of whether he felt England were building an attack that could succeed overseas. “You also need skill to go with that. Obviously it was a pretty slow wicket but we showed that we had an attack that could expose different options.
“Having different types of options in your armoury in a bowling attack is obviously key, especially when it's flat, when it's not really offering you much in the air or off the wicket. Having Woody and Gus in this game in particular I think was very good and obviously having those two operate together is very, very exciting for the future of England.”
