And so as England’s cricketers looked back across their trek through the endless Bazball summer, as they peered more closely at their moments of most profound struggle, adversity, and almost chucking it away like a bunch of Jägerbomb-sodden teenagers, they noticed that where there were previously 22 footprints in the sand, in those moments of greatest tension there was only one. Yes, England cricketers, the Spirit Of Cricket answered. That was when Chris Woakes carried you.
Well, that was unexpected. Of all the turns and twists, the throbbing narratives available to this epic Ashes series, to England’s moreish, thrilling, occasionally infuriating attempts to reinvent how this austere old game can be played, it turned out the most vital part, the key player, rescuer from the outright disaster of 3-1, was the least Bazballish of them all.
It is an excellent sporting joke in its own way. We’re going to reinvent this thing. We’re going to blow the doors off, stick a jukebox in this place, backflip across the walnut tables like ginger-bearded Spice Girls, and generally decorate the world with bucket-hatted bro-vibes. Or at the very least, claw a 2-0 series deficit back to a vibrant 2-2, with fine play on both sides and a worthy retention of the urn by Australia.
And it turns out we’re going to do all of this via the thrillingly steady seam and swing bowling of 34-year-old Chris Woakes, whose inclusion from Headingley to the Oval played a massive hand in transforming England’s series.
Woakes was sensationally good at the Oval on the final day. In a rain-troubled match it was Woakes who took his razor edge to Australia’s fourth-innings chase, taking four wickets, summoning devilment and energy when England needed them most, and in effect filling in for two non-bowling seamers: Ben Stokes, whose right knee really does seem to have retired to take up offers elsewhere, and Jimmy Anderson, who bowled again not badly or sloppily, but unnervingly, the same but not the same, a hollowed out avatar of Jimmy Anderson.
The key moment in the day arrived at 4.47pm, half an hour into the post-rain session, with Steve Smith batting like a green-helmeted deity, and taking the attack back to Woakes, who had been ripping through at the other end. But Woakes got him here with a classic piece of Wizball, the fourth-stump away-nipper, end note to a succession of in-duckers and channel balls, all landed in the fast-medium kill zone, the region of uncertainty, of polite questions asked.
Smith reached out and sent a hard edge into the hands of Zak Crawley, who takes these so easily, with a gentle stoop, hands already low. And as the sun came out the Oval was already beside itself, a barrelling wave of shouts, gurgles, barks, chirrups, gripped by the wizardry of one of the great England-in-England bowlers, a man who doesn’t really seem to be running in to bowl at all, but hurrying off discreetly to attend to some administrative task.
No doubt Stuart Broad will take the headlines for his late intervention against the tail in his final Test, for his bail-finagling, his photogenic whoops and war dances. The question of England’s style will be pored over and dissected, the moral triumphs or otherwise of a puppyish and increasingly buoyant 2-2.
Baz chat, Baz logic, Baz reasoning will circle the Baz embers of the first great Baz series of mankind’s Bazball era. But make no mistake, here it was something more classical and gentlemanly, the pistol inside the rolled up newspaper that did for Australia.
Woakes really wasn’t supposed to be in this photograph at all. He didn’t feature in any of last year’s Baz-Tests, sat out Edgbaston and Lord’s, kept himself in shape, swerved the Indian Premier League payday to be ready just in case. England picked him late in the summer. At which point they finally started winning.
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Here he was politely rampant when England needed it most, bowling up at 86mph, finding bounce seam, swing nibble wang curve wobble Baz, jag, and ultimately a route to saving this summer of high-stakes jeopardy for the Stokes-McCullum experiment.
Utterly at home under those grey and chilly July skies, a creature perfectly adapted to his environment, he moved one just enough early on to bring an end to David Warner’s own English odyssey. And Woakes under English skies is, lest we forget, one of the most understatedly gruelling ordeals in Test cricket. This is Jadeja on an Indian skidder, an angry Aussie pace attack at the Gabba. This is the Wizard finding each-way nibble off a good length.
A little later he went full to Usman Khawaja, by now so far back he was basically playing from behind his stumps, and had him lbw. Woakes had two for eight. The air seemed to fizz and bubble with possibilities. He ambled down to fine leg and was greeted with a whip-crack of sustained applause, but not, as yet, any documentary homages. Maybe he should retire as well.
By the end Woakes finished with four for 50 as England won by 49 runs. Whatever the podium grandees might say he is England’s player of the series, on the numbers, on impact, on 19 wickets at 17.6 to go, with his match-sealing batting at Headingley, fine fielding, relentless stamina, and with generally being an utterly admirable cricketer. The revolution can wait, for now. England found their route to a thrilling parity this summer in more classical forms, by being more Woakes.
