Keeping pace with unmanageable schedule

England's Olly Stone has played one Test against Ireland in 2019 Picture: 2019

Are fast bowlers born or made? Michael Holding, the former West Indies champion and one of the fastest of all time, is in the nature rather than nurture camp.

“You have to be born a fast bowler. You’ve got to have rhythm and the co-ordination and everything else that it takes to bowl fast. Strength, hard work and practice cannot make a fast bowler. It’s not just physical – it’s a lot of other things combined,” he once said.

It’s a question worth pondering as England contemplate making changes for the second Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, with James Anderson potentially replacing Stuart Broad and Olly Stone rated as a 50-50 chance to replace Mark Wood, one injury-prone fast bowler for another.

Stone and wood are hardy materials, but their cricketing namesakes have been plagued to the point where their first-class careers have been more stop than start.

If Stone plays it will be only his second Test, after a debut against Ireland in 2019. His first international wicket actually came in an ODI in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, three years ago, when he gave Niroshan Dickwella the hurry-up with a memorable bouncer that ballooned off the batsman’s glove, something neither man will have forgotten.

Stone is genuinely quick, a 90mph-plus bowler who says his fastest recorded speed is 93.8mph (151km/h) in a domestic T20 finals day. With Wood and Jofra Archer, that gives England three genuinely fast bowlers.

Like other top-class fast bowlers of yesteryear, such as Dale Steyn and Allan Donald, Archer gives the impression that he does not have to strain excessively for speed. Wood and Stone are different and so far their bodies have struggled to cope with the undoubtedly difficult physical demands of bowling fast. Stone said on Wednesday that those requirements had caused him to question, from time to time, whether bowling fast was “the right thing to do”.

He has had a miserable run of luck, for sure. In 2016, he suffered a freak injury when damaging his knee celebrating a wicket, which put paid to much of the following season.

In early 2019 he suffered the first of two stress fractures to the spine, a second of which followed his Test debut against Ireland and put him out of consideration for the Ashes late in the summer. A side strain last year meant that his cricket was restricted to a handful of T20 Blast games at the end of the season.

Stone’s recent first-class record reflects on these problems. He has played only 38 first-class games in all: he played one first-class match in 2017, eight in 2018, three in 2019 and one last summer. It’s a fine balance – fast bowlers cannot be over-bowled, but they do need an amount of work to harden their bodies for use.

Coping with injuries has been difficult. Hidden from general view are the long, lonely hours of rehabilitation, away from teammates and away from the buzz and enjoyment of playing. Stone says family and friends have been important, as have his interests beyond the game. The 27-year-old has worked for BBC Radio Norfolk and has set up a company selling willow to bat-makers. It’s usually a good sign when cricketers have outside interests.

Now he is looking to stake his claim and put a run of games together. It is with an eye on the Ashes at the end of the year that England want to gather a group of fast bowlers, but here in Sri Lanka the seamers and quicks have their uses too. The pitch in Galle may resemble a beach by day three, but England’s spinners will need help, and Broad, Wood and Sam Curran all played important parts in the opening win, creating pressure and picking up vital wickets.

It is also hard to imagine that Sri Lanka can bat as badly as they did in the first innings of the last game, and their performance second time around is an indication of their true merit. England cannot expect to be gifted wickets again so easily, and there will be some hard yards ahead – another reason why Joe Root, the captain, and Chris Silverwood, the head coach, are contemplating rotating their pack. Moeen Ali is a certain non-starter, as he gets himself up to speed having suffered with COVID-19, and playing a third spinner is unlikely. The balance of the team will remain the same.

Sri Lanka have already announced that their captain, Dimuth Karunaratne, has not recovered from his fractured thumb and have dropped Kusal Mendis after a shocking run of form. Quite what role the all-rounder Dasun Shanaka played in the first Test is uncertain. In the classic words of John Arlott when describing the New Zealander Bob Cunis, Shanaka is “neither one thing nor the other” and should give way for a specialist in a match that the home side must win.

England will want to keep a fine run of form going. They have not won five consecutive Tests away from home for more than a century and victory will keep alive their slim hopes of qualifying for the final of the World Test Championship. A 2-0 win in Sri Lanka and victory by three matches in India will sneak them past New Zealand, whose schedule is done and who must now sit and wait.

Two days out from the game England were still pondering which bowlers to play, although their long-term strategy of creating a pick ‘n’ mix group of fast bowlers is clear. There is plenty of room in the nature-versus-nurture debate, but what is beyond argument is how the demands have increased, which is exactly why England want to create a strong group and are ready to rotate them, regardless of form.

Holding, one of the best ever, played for West Indies over a 12-year period, missing few games through injury. He played only 60 Tests in all, though, averaging five a year. This year alone, England will play 17 Tests, a clearly unsustainable program for any fast bowler to endure alone.

The Times