It hit my pride. I’m bowling the best I ever have
NATURALLY I was very disappointed to be sat on the sidelines this week as you would expect any player to be when not selected for a Test match. From a personal point of view, I would have loved to have a bowl on this Kensington Oval pitch — it looks like it’s suited to the taller, faster bowlers.
Another source of frustration is that I’m bowling the best I’ve ever bowled. I believe that 100 per cent. Everyone in this England group knows it too.
I have experience to fall back on, the new run-up I disclosed in this column a fortnight ago feels really good and is achieving everything I want it to, there is confidence from taking a hat-trick and four wickets in five balls in the warm-up game and I’m moving this Caribbean Dukes ball more than I can remember.
There is no point in sulking around the place, though, because you need to prepare for your next opportunity. Selection didn’t go my way in this particular Test match but let’s not forget it didn’t go the way of the other bowlers Chris Woakes, Jack Leach and Mark Wood either.
A lot has been spoken and written about me not playing but these guys can class themselves as unfortunate too. But it has been made clear to us that we are on this tour as a squad and that different players will be needed at different times. That doesn’t mean your pride isn’t hit and I admit that, when Joe Root told me I wasn’t playing, I was a bit down in the dumps.
I arrived at the ground on Wednesday mentally prepared for the match, having been named in the 12 the previous evening and found out I wasn’t in the team a bit before the toss.
Several guys came up to me later, saying they had absolutely no idea that I’d been left out because I’d not shown my disappointment and that’s something I’m quite proud of, because I think it’s quite important when you are not picked to concentrate on the 11 that have been.
Particularly on tour you have a responsibility to drag nothing away from the group that have a job to do on the field. I felt I kept my disappointment in my own mind and intend to use it as a motivator to get myself ready for the next opportunity.
As in Sri Lanka earlier this winter, those not involved have been given days off and on day two it was my turn alongside Chris Woakes. It’s a good policy to give guys a break because, even when you are not playing it’s busy; looking after the 11 on the field for six hours and then doing your running, bowling and batting at lunch and tea.
I had a lot of WhatsApp messages to get through, to be honest. Arguably as many as I did when I got eight for 15 against Australia in 2015, which is a bit of a strange dynamic. But I have been grateful for the words of support.
Then to get a huge cheer when I came on as 12th man on Friday made me feel embarrassed, in a nice way. I’m not someone who seeks attention, so I tried to keep a straight face but then I just burst into a big smile because it means a lot when the fans show their emotions to you.
To be honest, I knew I might not play many Tests this winter, not because of form but the conditions we would face and in Sri Lanka I could have no argument with being left out because it was a decision I would have made myself. On those pitches, 90 per cent of the wickets were taken by spin, completely unreceptive to pace and the best bowler of our time in Jimmy Anderson got absolutely zero out of them. If he couldn’t, I certainly wasn’t going to.
And all the work I have done on my bowling since the end of last summer has been implemented with the Ashes in mind. We have talked as a group not to look too far ahead but, in an Ashes year, that series is always hanging over you. Everything I do now is geared towards that.
I have no doubts in my mind that I will be in the XI at Edgbaston on August 1, or at Lord’s for the Test match against Ireland that precedes it. That’s not saying I’m not working towards getting into this team in Antigua next week but if you have longevity in your mind it means you are working really hard.
One of the frustrations of being left out on tour is that you can go two or three weeks without any sort of match practice. If this game was at Lord’s I could be straight up the M1
and playing for Notts, remaining in match mode all the time. So my biggest test now is to keep a match rhythm somehow and that’s the difficulty of modern touring.
Mark Ramprakash, our batting coach, was recalling just the other day that you would have four or five touring games when he was an England player and it allowed everyone to feel as though they had had some cricket. Whereas for us, once you start the Test series, there’s a couple of days in between each and you don’t blink.
Finally, there has been a bit of a hullabaloo on social media over my moving of rooms at the Accra Beach Resort.
The fact is I was getting bitten to high heaven in my room and during the first week here there were no other rooms available because the hotel was completely full. Once one did become available last Sunday, I moved and haven’t been bitten since.
The bites weren’t in particularly sensitive areas, just on my back and legs, neither were they affecting my sleep, my training or anything to do with playing cricket. I just became a bit annoying to the team doctor, going to him daily for treatment.
It all became public when I walked past the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew on the outfield, told him I’d been nailed and showed him my leg. He laughed and said ‘the Hilton’s very nice’.
When he reported my situation, he was saying it very much in jest, filling a bit of time on the radio and the thing about players sleeping on mattresses outside was not the case in the slightest. Could you imagine an England team having a snooze in the corridor? It was all a bit of fun really — apart from for the hotel and the West Indies Cricket Board who are less happy with Aggers than I am.