Two numbers encapsulate Olly Stone’s last three years as a professional cricketer.
Zero: his number of Test caps. And two: the number of screws in his spine, which are still there.
In July 2021, a back stress fracture led Stone to St John’s Wood. At Wellington Hospital, adjacent to the Nursery Ground, Stone had a career-saving back operation. Stone did not necessarily need surgery if he was to play cricket again; but he needed surgery to have a chance of playing Test cricket again.
On the fourth day of the Lord’s Test, a few hundred metres from his operation, Stone showed why he had not given up on Test cricket. He showed, too, why England’s Test team had not given up on him.
Nearing one o’clock, it was approaching 28 degrees on a docile Lord’s wicket. Forty-six overs old, the ball had gone soft. It was a time when the traditional English seam bowling virtues — bowling full and accurately to generate swing — would not suffice. And it was exactly the sort of moment for which Stone was recalled.
For batsmen and bowler alike, the plan was as easy to follow as the hands on a clock: the ball would be short, as the absence of even a token slip, and the array of fielders behind the wicket made clear. Dimuth Karunaratne, who had made a stoic half-century, was braced.
Bowling over the wicket to the left-hander, Stone found an ideal line and length for his tactic, attacking the arm-pit like a particularly irritating mosquito. Met by an 87mph delivery, Karunaratne could not get his glove out of the way; Jamie Smith completed the catch.
However grateful England were for the wicket, the moment’s real significance lay in what it augured for the challenges ahead. Here was a template for how England can extract wickets on flat pitches on hot days, just as they will have to in Pakistan and New Zealand this winter and in Australia in 2025-26.
For his intoxicating pace, Mark Wood is at the heart of England’s strategies for these series. Stone’s speed at Lord’s showed it was not just modesty that led him to declare that he will not approach Wood’s 97mph recorded earlier this summer. But he suggested that he is as close to a like-for-like replacement for Wood as currently exists in the English game. If, say, Wood is unleashed in the first and third Tests in Pakistan next month, Stone could slot in and play the second.
The dismissal of Karunaratne illustrated Stone’s threat on a dry surface. So did hitting Milan Rathnayake on the helmet twice in the match, even if Stone was flayed for 34 runs in a five-over spell with the old ball on the fourth day.
While Stone sacrificed his economy rate as he embraced the short-ball plan too predictably, his Test return also showed his range. In both innings, Stone struck quickly: with his sixth ball in the second innings, and seventh in the first. Pathum Nissanka’s second innings dismissal, poking to a packed slip cordon in the 14th over, showed Stone’s threat when bowling conventionally with the newer ball.
Another quiet endorsement for England selection policy
Given the conditions, and his role largely bowling with the older ball, match figures of 4-126 — with all his victims top three batsmen — amounted to a fine Test return. After 11 wickets at 52.63 in six first-class games this summer, Stone is another quiet endorsement for England’s selection policy: an underwhelming County Championship average increasingly feels like a requirement for any would-be Test bowler.
Compared to his previous Test iteration, the Stone seen at Lord’s against Sri Lanka was a few miles per hour slower. But he hinted at being more skilful, a threat with the new and old-ball alike, and adept at bowling both over and around the wicket to right-handers. Most importantly, Stone just might be more durable. This is the first summer since 2015 in which Stone has bowled more than 1,000 balls, the equivalent of just 167 overs, in first-class cricket. Without any England contract, Stone has become more able to manage himself, dialling up and down his speed depending on the situation in the game.
One constant during Stone’s intermittent Test career has been impressive performances when he has been on the pitch. In four Tests spread over five years, Stone now has 14 wickets at 22.8 apiece. If, aged 30, there remains a sense of sadness about the time that Stone has lost, Wood attests to what rapid bowlers can achieve deep into their 30s.
Even with his apparent new robustness, Stone’s record indicates a man who cannot be relied upon to play every Test.
Happily, he doesn’t need to. As they embark on the challenges ahead in the next 18 months, England Test squads will be stronger for Stone’s presence.
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