Captain re-asserts his status in trademark day of bowling schemes
Matt Roller15-Oct-20240:57
Potts hopes to prove himself after first overseas wicket
Ben Stokes has spent four Test matches in a row watching on like an anxious landlord from the England dressing-room. Much as he might want to trust his tenants to keep his house in order, he has found himself reminding them to let some air in through the bathroom window to stave off mould, and that the recycling bins go out on Monday nights, not Tuesday.Stokes did his best to empower his deputy Ollie Pope but his presence in the dressing-room ensured constant comparison. “Being stand-in captain is always harder than being captain,” Stokes, who lost his only Test deputising for Joe Root, acknowledged. “You’re only going to do it for a certain amount of games, and you’re still trying to push forward what the current captain is doing.”After nine weeks sidelined with a torn hamstring, Stokes made up for lost time on his comeback in Multan. Pakistan’s unprecedented decision to recycle the pitch from the first Test was the catalyst for a series of creative plans and field changes across 90 overs in the field for England, all of them carrying the captain’s distinctive fingerprints.The pitch played much better than expected, but has developed many more distinctive characteristics since England wrapped up their innings win on Friday. The cracks on a good length had widened and the grass on the rest of the square was much shorter. Conditions were much more conducive to reverse-swing, and balls regularly shot through lower than they should have done.This was never likely to be a surface conducive to slip catches, and the population of England’s slip cordon dropped from two to one before the end of Matthew Potts’ first over. By the start of the seventh, Stokes had spinners operating in tandem, a pattern he maintained until the 27th, when Potts returned with no slips but several catchers in front of the bat.Pakistan made clear when selecting a team featuring only one frontline quick – Aamer Jamal, who was their third seamer last week – that they expected a turning pitch. Even still, Leach’s success with the hard new ball spoke to Stokes’ reading of the game: not since the 19th century had an England spinner taken two wickets in the first 10 overs of a match.Matthew Potts struck shortly before tea•AFP/Getty ImagesThe double-spin returned for the first 17 overs of the afternoon session, but then 16 of the next 17 were bowled by the seamers. Stokes took a simple catch in an unorthodox short mid-off position to dismiss Saim Ayub off Potts’ bowling shortly before tea, and had the ball tailing late in his own five-over burst.The ball continued to reverse just enough after tea: Brydon Carse had Saud Shakeel caught behind with an 87mph/140kph effort ball, which shaped away to take the outside edge. He screamed in celebration, and pointed to assistant coach Paul Collingwood on the balcony after they had hatched a plan in the interval.For one brief period in the day, Stokes used seam and spin in tandem: between the 64th and 73rd overs, when the old ball was offering almost nothing. It was during that phase that he made his one major error of the day, failing to review a caught-behind decision when replays confirmed that Mohammad Rizwan had edged Potts behind on 6.”There was a decent noise going past the bat [which] the guys in front of the bat heard,” Potts said, “but the slip and keeper didn’t hear anything. We’ve got to err on the side of caution with that and trust the guys behind us, because they have the best view of it. I thought, potentially, it was a softish noise, which could have been bat on pad.”Potts developed his reverse-swing skills in India earlier this year, where he was the stand-out bowler on England Lions’ tour. Last month, he had a Kookaburra ball reversing when he took 9 for 68 in an innings for Durham. “The Lions chance was a great chance to explore, try different things, and find something that works,” he said. “It’s about implementing those ideas here.”Related
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Reviews aside, Pope generally led England well in the field across his four Tests in interim charge. But he never quite shook off the sense of a Stokes impersonator, moving the pieces in the way he had been instructed rather than through his own instinct. His plans paid off on the fourth evening of the first Test, though that owed plenty to Pakistan’s mental exhaustion after 150 overs being run ragged in the field.By contrast, Stokes has developed an aura about him that means his team-mates would not think to second-guess his decision-making. “When you come up with a plan, you’ve got to have 100% buy-in with that plan,” Potts said. “For the bowlers that were given the task with a certain plan, there was 100% buy-in from everyone and we created a lot of chances throughout the day.”Perhaps Stokes’ best decision came shortly before the close. Shoaib Bashir struggled in the first Test, returning figures of 1 for 156, and was twice slog-swept for four by Rizwan in his first over of the final session. But Stokes empowered Bashir with the second new ball when it was only four overs old, and the extra bounce enabled him to beat centurion Kamran Ghulam in the flight to bowl him.There is no telling how this pitch will behave across the next four days on its second use, making it hard to draw conclusions from Pakistan’s overnight total. But it is clear that after spending four Tests watching on from afar, Stokes had taken back the keys and was thrilled to be back at home.