Bri
Striker
I thinks it's saying what we all knew.
Matthew Potts has waited a long time for his Ashes debut. He has been a Test cricketer for almost four years, was an unused member of the squad in the 2023 summer, and throughout this grim tour.
Finally, at Sydney, Potts’s Ashes opportunity came, following injuries to Mark Wood, then Jofra Archer, then Gus Atkinson. The Sydney Cricket Ground and England have a curious, largely unhappy relationship. It is a site of random debuts, with Boyd Rankin, Scott Borthwick (both 2014), and Mason Crane (2018) winning their only Test caps here, and
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After three days, Potts must wish his chance had never come. Barring a miraculous turnaround, he will end this Test with his England career in a much more perilous position than it started, after a scattergun showing that called into question his reputation for reliability and consistency.
After a steady start to day three, Travis Head waited for Potts to come into the attack, hammering his first three balls for four, to extra-cover, over gully and through midwicket. Potts had had a torrid second day, and this was a savage welcome.
By the end of the day, Potts was just six runs away from topping a grim list: the worst innings figures by an English seamer in Tests. He had none for 141, with Andy Caddick’s none for 146 in the Oval Ashes Test of 2001 topping the charts.
What was striking, though, was Potts’s leakiness. Of the worst 20 bowling analyses by England seamers, Potts’ economy of 5.6 runs an over is by far the worst. That even represented a recovery of sorts, having been taken for 72 from his first eight overs, and bringing up his hundred in 15.1 overs.
Potts last played a Test 13 months ago in Hamilton, with England’s most recent series win already secured. After an
After that Test, England went off Potts. They showed their hand when, even amid something of an injury crisis, they left him out against Zimbabwe. Even though he did not make the squad for any of the five Tests against India, they turned back to him for the Ashes after Chris Woakes’s injury pushed him into retirement and Jamie Overton’s withdrawal from red-ball cricket on physical grounds.
They have not seemed especially keen on him in Australia either, as he did not come close to selection in the first four Tests. By the time he was selected, he had not played for six weeks, and it showed.
Like the continued retention of Ollie Pope despite murmurings that some members of the management have lost faith in him, Potts’s management seems a failure of selection.
He was recalled despite his poorest county season since his breakthrough in 2021. He took just 29 wickets for relegated Durham at an average of 42, including three games in September for combined figures of six for 312. With Woakes injured, he beat the likes of Sam Cook, Matthew Fisher and even Dan Worrall (who never appeared under serious consideration) to the role of “English-style seamer” alongside a bevy of faster men.
This has exposed two worrying truths, from an English point of view. First, that the selectors misread what was required in Australia, where pitches are juicier and the Kookaburra ball is more dangerous now than it was a decade ago. And second, that Australia are producing better English-style bowlers than England.
It is not so long ago that England had James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Woakes at their disposal. That is before we mention Ollie Robinson, whom they discarded quickly, partly due to a breakdown in trust and partly for fitness reasons. All four, whatever their age, must be watching through their fingers as Potts and Brydon Carse take the new ball. Early on in Australia’s innings, the England’s bowlers’ pitch map looked like the work of Jackson Pollock.
“England have gone with a tactic of using their worst two bowlers in this innings with a brand new ball. Twice,” said Michael Vaughan witheringly. Ben Stokes wants to empower his players, but would have been better off taking the new ball himself.
Carse recovered here, picking up three wickets, which took him to 22 for the series, more than any Englishman since Anderson’s 24 in 2010-11. Potts’s struggles continued. There is something of the “squaddie” about Potts, and his attitude and commitment to the badge could never be questioned, but he does not appear the same bowler who emerged in 2022, fiddling out Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli as Anderson and Broad’s first change.
When operating in the low 80mphs, as he does, you have to be unbelievably accurate, and extract any movement on offer. Sadly for Potts, he did neither here.
To be clear. I do have faith in him, but he hasn't played well enough for England and I don't think it's all his fault. Come back to Durham and get your head down! Better times ahead!
Matthew Potts has waited a long time for his Ashes debut. He has been a Test cricketer for almost four years, was an unused member of the squad in the 2023 summer, and throughout this grim tour.
Finally, at Sydney, Potts’s Ashes opportunity came, following injuries to Mark Wood, then Jofra Archer, then Gus Atkinson. The Sydney Cricket Ground and England have a curious, largely unhappy relationship. It is a site of random debuts, with Boyd Rankin, Scott Borthwick (both 2014), and Mason Crane (2018) winning their only Test caps here, and
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After three days, Potts must wish his chance had never come. Barring a miraculous turnaround, he will end this Test with his England career in a much more perilous position than it started, after a scattergun showing that called into question his reputation for reliability and consistency.
After a steady start to day three, Travis Head waited for Potts to come into the attack, hammering his first three balls for four, to extra-cover, over gully and through midwicket. Potts had had a torrid second day, and this was a savage welcome.
By the end of the day, Potts was just six runs away from topping a grim list: the worst innings figures by an English seamer in Tests. He had none for 141, with Andy Caddick’s none for 146 in the Oval Ashes Test of 2001 topping the charts.
What was striking, though, was Potts’s leakiness. Of the worst 20 bowling analyses by England seamers, Potts’ economy of 5.6 runs an over is by far the worst. That even represented a recovery of sorts, having been taken for 72 from his first eight overs, and bringing up his hundred in 15.1 overs.
Potts last played a Test 13 months ago in Hamilton, with England’s most recent series win already secured. After an
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, he rather ran out of puff. Since, he has taken on a sort of mythical status among pockets of England supporters, with his absence only improving him in the mind’s eye of many, as so often happens.After that Test, England went off Potts. They showed their hand when, even amid something of an injury crisis, they left him out against Zimbabwe. Even though he did not make the squad for any of the five Tests against India, they turned back to him for the Ashes after Chris Woakes’s injury pushed him into retirement and Jamie Overton’s withdrawal from red-ball cricket on physical grounds.
They have not seemed especially keen on him in Australia either, as he did not come close to selection in the first four Tests. By the time he was selected, he had not played for six weeks, and it showed.
Like the continued retention of Ollie Pope despite murmurings that some members of the management have lost faith in him, Potts’s management seems a failure of selection.
He was recalled despite his poorest county season since his breakthrough in 2021. He took just 29 wickets for relegated Durham at an average of 42, including three games in September for combined figures of six for 312. With Woakes injured, he beat the likes of Sam Cook, Matthew Fisher and even Dan Worrall (who never appeared under serious consideration) to the role of “English-style seamer” alongside a bevy of faster men.
This has exposed two worrying truths, from an English point of view. First, that the selectors misread what was required in Australia, where pitches are juicier and the Kookaburra ball is more dangerous now than it was a decade ago. And second, that Australia are producing better English-style bowlers than England.
It is not so long ago that England had James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Woakes at their disposal. That is before we mention Ollie Robinson, whom they discarded quickly, partly due to a breakdown in trust and partly for fitness reasons. All four, whatever their age, must be watching through their fingers as Potts and Brydon Carse take the new ball. Early on in Australia’s innings, the England’s bowlers’ pitch map looked like the work of Jackson Pollock.
“England have gone with a tactic of using their worst two bowlers in this innings with a brand new ball. Twice,” said Michael Vaughan witheringly. Ben Stokes wants to empower his players, but would have been better off taking the new ball himself.
Carse recovered here, picking up three wickets, which took him to 22 for the series, more than any Englishman since Anderson’s 24 in 2010-11. Potts’s struggles continued. There is something of the “squaddie” about Potts, and his attitude and commitment to the badge could never be questioned, but he does not appear the same bowler who emerged in 2022, fiddling out Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli as Anderson and Broad’s first change.
When operating in the low 80mphs, as he does, you have to be unbelievably accurate, and extract any movement on offer. Sadly for Potts, he did neither here.
To be clear. I do have faith in him, but he hasn't played well enough for England and I don't think it's all his fault. Come back to Durham and get your head down! Better times ahead!
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