How Ben Stokes helped bowler Brydon Carse out of 16-month betting ban and into Ashes weapon

England bowler Brydon Carse faced his fair share of adversity after he was slapped with a 16-month betting ban, and it’s no surprise that English captain Ben Stokes was the one to help him out of his battles and into an Ashes weapon.

Ben Stokes knows all about going through adversity to the stars, so it was little surprise that, when Brydon Carse was banned last year for breaching betting rules, Stokes was best placed to give the soundest advice.

The gist of his message was: own it, be truthful, learn from it and things will get better over time.

As Stokes has discovered after the infamous incident in Bristol in 2017 with the court case that ensued, as well as some mental health issues in 2021, they do indeed get better.

And so it has proved for Carse, who, having made his England white-ball debut under Stokes when England had to change their entire squad in 2021 because of Covid and then made his Test bow last year, now looks at home in an England shirt, producing match-turning performances that will surely have him inked in as a starter for this winter’s Ashes.

England captain Ben Stokes helped Brydon Carse overcome adversity. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images

Stokes and Carse are mates from Durham, to where Carse first travelled from his South African home in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), aged 18, but a captain’s duties extend so much further than the eye can see. As the former Essex captain Doug Insole once said, a captain is a mix of “a public relations officer, agricultural consultant, psychiatrist, accountant, nursemaid and diplomat”.

There is much more help available to the captain now than in Insole’s days, but the truth remains that skippers need to look out for their players, because they are going to ask for an awful lot in return.

“When those kinds of things come from someone who knows what it’s like to go through certain stuff it means a bit more to the person listening,” Stokes has said of his advice to Carse.

“He knows how much value I have in him as a player. I guess it might make him run a little bit harder when it’s me asking him to bowl an extra over.”

Carse was banned for breaching betting rules. Picture: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

Last winter Carse considered amputation when a wound in the second toe of his left foot kept getting infected, and he only shelved the plan when medical staff told him that it would adversely affect his balance. He is clearly a tough cookie, very much following the Stokes mantra of battling through the pain (Stokes’s late father, Ged, had a finger amputated to continue his rugby league career).

As Stokes said so after Carse had won the man-of-the-match award in only his third Test in Christchurch, New Zealand, last year: “He has the heart of a lion. Whenever you chuck him the ball he’s going to give 100 per cent - he would keep bowling even if his toe was ripped off. He wouldn’t show any pain, he’d just keep going.”

Ravindra Jadeja may have been picking on the wrong guy when contending that Carse had run into him on the final day at Lord’s. If the 29-year-old Carse had meant that, I suspect Jadeja and everyone else would have known about it. Carse is a strapping 6ft 3in, after all.

Carse has a British passport through his father, James, a former first-class cricketer from Zimbabwe. Like his dad, the all-rounder is not afraid of a word or two to the batsman, but it is his skills and hostility with the ball that are doing more of the talking now.

His spell late on the Sunday evening at Lord’s, removing Karun Nair and Shubman Gill, was critical to England’s stunning victory in the third Test. It began with a rare mistake from Stokes. Carse bowled an away swinger to KL Rahul that was hit straight at Stokes at cover, but the captain fumbled and a single was taken to bring Nair on strike.

Carse repeated the away swinger, but this one swung even more, beating Nair’s outside edge on the drive. Nair motioned to indicate the amount of swing and that was clearly in his mind when the next ball did not swing and instead went down the slope from the Pavilion End. Nair padded up and immediately walked.

Carse’s pace was regularly up at 90mph at this stage and he beat Gill, the prize wicket, twice with that away swinger and had a caught-behind erroneously given before being overturned on review. Even when presenting Gill with a juicy full toss that went for four, Carse was chirping the Indian captain, perhaps telling him what was about to happen, because it had been England’s plan all series, however unfulfilled until this moment.

Carse slightly adjusted his position on the crease to a little wider and trapped Gill plumb in front. The ball moving back into him had worked at last.

The complexion of the game had changed, and although Stokes led his team from the field that evening, having bowled Akash Deep in the final over, it was Carse who followed him. With Jofra Archer back and firing, and Gus Atkinson nearing a return, it was obvious in that moment that England’s Ashes attack is shaping up nicely.

Having written about the importance of Carse’s runs at Lord’s, it will be some lower order they present at Old Trafford, with Liam Dawson batting at No 8, Woakes at No 9 and Carse at No 10. There can have been few better No 10s in Test history. Archer is not the worst No 11, either.

Depth in batting is always desirable but so is versatility in a bowler, and that is where Carse is proving so valuable. He can perform a variety of roles, whether that is as an enforcer when the bouncer barrage is required, a swing bowler, or a nip bowler when it is seaming - and also he can keep it tight, as he did at Lord’s.

Carse entered international cricket with a mediocre county record and fears that he did not move the ball enough to trouble the very top batsmen, but spells like the one on the fourth evening at Lord’s have dispelled that. He has a strong, repeatable action and, crucially, has a delayed bowling arm, whereby after his front (left) foot has landed, there is a lag because his arm is still below the level of his shoulders, and this creates a whip-like effect that produces extra pace.

He has 36 wickets from eight Tests at an average of 26.91 - a fine start. As Stokes said last winter: “I think he’s going to be playing for England for a long time now.” He certainly is.