So let the bar be reset: England need someone to take the new ball and 10, perhaps 12, wickets in each of their two three-Test series this summer, against West Indies then Sri Lanka; to bowl wicket-taking spells with old and new ball in the next Ashes; and to take 100 Test wickets. This much is humanly achievable.
Sam Cook of Essex has been identified as the nearest to a like-for-like replacement and he shares some of Anderson’s finest attributes. He was parading his fast-medium pace and accuracy – giving the batsman no option other than to play ball after ball as it nibbled around – in Essex’s last County Championship game on a damp pitch at Taunton. In 15.4 overs Cook took five wickets for 38, snuffing out Somerset for 128.
Give Cook such a pitch during England’s Test summer and he would probably do the job better than anyone, especially perhaps at Trent Bridge. There he has broadened his skills when playing in the Hundred for the Rockets: at 26 he is a quick learner to judge by his range of slower balls.
The trouble is that Test pitches in England now are very seldom “decks” conducive to seam bowling, whether upright or scrambled or wobbled: they are batting tracks made for Bazballing. On the second day of Essex’s game against Somerset, the pitch began to dry out and batting became less hazardous. It was still a low-scoring game but Somerset edged home by three wickets. Cook again bowled 15 overs but this time for two wickets and 55 runs, conceding the initiative when Somerset’s opening batsmen and later Andrew Umeed went after him.
Essex’s Cook and Jamie Porter are arguably the most difficult opening attack to face in the championship if the pitch is doing anything at all. But the pertinent point for England here is that there is precious little difference between their figures: when Cook took five for 38 against Somerset, Porter took five for 37. In last season’s championship Porter took 57 wickets at only 19 each, and Cook 48 at 19. If Cook is Test calibre, one would expect his figures at this stage of his career to be distinctly better than Porter’s.
All ready to go as fast bowlers with ECB central contracts are Ollie Robinson, Matthew Potts, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson. Any day that he is fit, Archer should take the new ball. Any day that he is hungry and not hiding his insecurity under a facade, Robinson should share it with him: that would be England’s dream opening pair in Australia, capable of matching the achievements of Anderson and Stuart Broad Down Under, but the probability is that it will remain as much: a dream.
The group characteristic of the other candidates who have central contracts is that they have grown up as first or second-change bowlers for their counties, not new-ball operators. Who is therefore best-placed around the circuit to take a new ball for England?
