How wily old Woakes had Australia on a string in the fourth Ashes Test

It was an aural memory that Chris Woakes took from Headingley in the last Test. “The feeling of that roar, the Western Terrace going mad … if you could bottle that up forever and come back to it, you would,” he said then. Over a few hours on the first day of the fourth Test at Manchester, Woakes had more to add to that mix-tape. The loudest cheers was understandably for Stuart Broad’s 600th Test wicket, but the jailbreak roars were reserved for Woakes’s accomplishments: nicking out David Warner who looked fluent for the first time in the series, knocking out Cameron Green, who despite his struggles was building a 65-run partnership, a peach to take out Australia’s best batsman Mitchell Marsh, who was threatening to hand control to Australia with that stand with Green, and a tempter outside off to remove the dogged Alex Carey.
Every time Australia, who were put into bat as the forecast isn’t great for the weekend and England wish to win to keep the Ashes alive, were looking to edge ahead, Woakes pegged them back with help from his carpool buddy Mark Wood. Australia ended the day on 299 for 8 rather than 350 for 5 which looked eminently possible at one stage.
And to think that Woakes’s days as a Test cricketer were over just a few weeks back, especially after an injury put him out of last season, England’s summer of Bazball! “You sometimes think the ship has sailed,” the 34-year old had said. Instead, along with Wood, it was Woakes who patched up a leaky England ship in the last match, and has steered them on course in this game. He can well repeat his words from the third Test: “It’s quite emotional … But I made a big decision at the start of summer not to go to the Indian Premier League and it’s days like this that make that sort of decision pay off, comfortably.”

The new ball does the trick!
Chris Woakes has four 🙌#EnglandCricket | #Ashes pic.twitter.com/kWUYkI0zCy
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 19, 2023
Joy to behold
Everything syncs up so neatly in his bowling. The smooth run-up; the fluent release; the seam position – tilted to first slip for his stock ball the outswinger; not quite an nip-backer but more of a runs-in-with-the-angle sort of delivery; the scrambled-seam ball, and the smarts to use the angles at the crease so cleverly. And not many have such a wonderful knack of hitting the right length on these pitches in England.
For much of his early years, Woakes didn’t have the nipbacker to the right-hander until his mentor Steve Perryman, the former Warwickshire bowler, gave him a yo-yo drill. It’s just like swing bowling, he would run down the fingers on the toy that he would walk with for days, and it helped Woakes master his wr position. That yo-yo toy can be symbolically used to describe his international career as well—up and down, but a simple joy to behold on a string.

YES WOAKESY! 🤩
Green reviews but it’s clipping! ☝️#EnglandCricket | #Ashes pic.twitter.com/xDed5uhi2a
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 19, 2023
That angled-across delivery sucked Warner into a loose drive. He had been working on the Australian opener for a while before that. From a length, pushing them across, consently ramming into the inside-edge, and suddenly he would slip in an inward-curler on the middle and leg line to test out Warner’s balance. A brief break intervened when sunlight reflected off the rails in the stands right into batsmen’s eyes. But when the game resumed, it was Woakes’s skill that would stay in Warner’s mind’s eye. It was the perfect Woakes kind of length, not too full, not too back and Warner walked right into the trap.
Later in the day when Marsh was carrying Green and Australia with yet another aggressive knock, Woakes entered again. Green’s problem ever since Mohammad Siraj revealed it to the world in the 2021 series has been the lbw. He has tinkered his stance, trying to open up, trying not to press his front foot across, but it would then throw up another problem: the straightener outside off can get him to edge. So, his wonderful hitting game hasn’t quite ever come off in the Tests; he can either swing a touch recklessly or go into a shell; he hasn’t yet mustered up the confidence in this format to show the world what he is capable of. Unsurprisingly, Woakes slipped in his yo-yo- triggered angler to take him out.

STOP THAT JONNY BAIRSTOW! 🤯 #EnglandCricket | #Ashes pic.twitter.com/aZ7wKcncRW
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 19, 2023
But it was the gorgeous away-shaper that he coaxed out of the cherry to take out Marsh that would probably fetch the most hits on YouTube. Again, that perfect Woakes length, and this time, it was the stock nipping away delivery that whled the dirge to Marsh, who still might have got away with his prod, but for Jonny Bairstow who somehow stretched low to his right to pluck it inches off the turf. And he sat there, roaring in joy (and probably a dash of surprise too?) at his great catch.
Just 39 runs after that moment, just as Australia seemed to stitch together another late-order revival, Woakes struck again with the yo-yo angler, inducing Carey to feather an edge.
Wood’s impact
It wasn’t all Woakes though; Wood, who wasn’t as consently scary-pacy as he was at Headingley and yet touched 90 mph, did in Steve Smith. Post lunch, Wood and England kept pinging the outside-off line to Smith before he suddenly bent one in line of stumps to get Smith lbw. A short while later, Sky Sports flashed a stat that Smith’s average against high-pace (defined over 90mph) is around 25. Mike Atherton, who presented that stat, was wise enough to add, “well, any batsman would have problems against that pace I guess”. Still, it’s Smith, and that stat can be expected to swirl up in pub chats in England.

Steve Smith… GONE! ❌
Mark Wood strikes after lunch and it’s a big one! ☝️ #EnglandCricket | #Ashes pic.twitter.com/4KGeJdrXec
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 19, 2023
And as ever, there was Stuart Broad doing Stuart Broad things. Whipping up the crowd; doing well against Australia (he moved past Ian Botham to become the bowler with the most scalps against the old enemy); taking his 600th Test wicket, incidentally from the James Anderson End. The 599th was his best delivery in an otherwise not so impressive first spell; it was full, it had pace, and it came in to beat the iffy prod from Usman Khawaja to ram into his pad. The 600th was the bouncer that Travis Head, his eyes off the ball, his head yanked out of position, tamely swatted to deep backward square-leg. And off Broad headed off into his celebratory run. Marsh would try his best to make that the last English celebration of the day but Woakes would have the Aussies on a string.
Brief Scores: Australia 299 for 8 (Labuschagne 51, Marsh 51, Woakes 4-52, Broad 2-68) vs England.