Chris Woakes’s two wickets against Bangladesh were not just notable for hints of a return to his best form after a torrid start to the 2023 World Cup. They also suggested, signifcantly, that he has expanded his reportoire.
In India, Woakes knows that when he returns with the old ball he will need to summon all his resourcefulness. When Litton Das edged Woakes behind for 76 in Dharmasala, ending any notion that Bangladesh could mount an assault on England’s 364, it was affirmation of a new trick that Woakes has developed with this World Cup in mind: developing his cutters.
“It was an off-cutter, something which I’ve bowled throughout my career,” Woakes explained. “I’ve just tried to change the way that the seam is presented with it.
“In these conditions, if I can bowl it with the seam up and it grabs the seam, it either holds or skids a little bit better. It’s something which I’ve just worked on from a seam position point of view. The delivery itself is the same, it’s just the way it comes out from a seam point of view.”
While he removed Das with an off-cutter, much of Woakes’s second spell consisted of the opposite variation: the leg-cutter, which curves away from the right-hander after pitching, like a fast leg break. It is not a new delivery for Woakes, but one that he has identified as crucial to enhance his effectiveness in India. He intends to bowl the variation more later in the tournament, as used pitches become abrasive and reward bowlers who can cut the ball.
“Something that I was working on was to bowl a leg-cutter, which I bowled a lot in that second spell, and try to take the ball away from the right-handers,” Woakes said. “I think it will be an effective delivery, especially through the middle and the back end, when wickets get a little bit slower and drier.”
Last summer, Woakes was player of the series in the Ashes. It was a remarkable achievement for a cricketer who had not played a Test for 16 months and was then parachuted into the Ashes with England 2-0 down. It was Woakes’s crowning achievement of a Test career in which, like Andy Murray in the age of tennis’s Big Three, his own stellar deeds have sometimes been marginalised by the greatness of his contemporaries.
Woakes’s response was typical. After a brief break, he settled down to think about what he needed to give himself the best chance of winning a third World Cup, to go with the 2019 ODI World Cup – when he took 6-57 across the semi-final and final combined – and last year’s T20 World Cup.
“I actually have been working on it since the summer, after the Ashes and going into the Hundred,” he explained. “I obviously had this in mind, coming here to Asia.”
The leg-cutter, “was something which I just figured my white-ball game could do with really”. Woakes sought out Stuart Barnes, Warwickshire’s bowling coach.
‘Gripping the ball harder, he has a more aggressive leg cutter’
“The easy thing with Woakesy is that he’s open to learning which is a big reason why he’s as good as he is,” Barnes says. “We then started breaking down what he was going to need – you need a cutter that attacks both edges, so an off cutter and a leg cutter.”
Together, the two studied slow-motion video footage. Woakes developed a subtly different grip for his cutters.
“Woaksey was very clear on what seam position he wanted his cutters to look like. The sessions were all about testing slightly different grips, different pressures, in order for us to see the seam position that gave the best chance of him being able to deliver.”
For his off cutter, Woakes aims to get his thumb down the wicket to get as much top spin as possible. For his leg cutter, Woakes developed variations with the variations. Gripping the ball softer, he has a ‘soft’ leg cutter, where the ball still has a chance of swinging or drifting into the right-hander before pitching. Gripping the ball harder, he has a more aggressive leg cutter that gets more movement from the wicket.
If Woakes’s game has developed, it will have a significant bearing on the balance of England’s attack. Should Woakes pose more venom once the new ball has lost its shine, it will give England greater threat in the middle overs, lessening the dependence upon Adil Rashid and Mark Wood in this phase.
The curiosity of Woakes’s campaign so far is that he has been least effective in the period that suits him best: with the new ball. Against New Zealand, when he bowled too full, his first three overs leaked 27 runs; against Bangladesh, he conceded 34. At this juncture, Woakes’s World Cup analysis was an inauspicious 0-99 from ten overs. But, recognising his importance to England’s campaign, Jos Buttler kept Woakes on for a fifth over with the new ball, and was rewarded with an outside edge to dismiss Mehidy Hasan Miraz.
During both the 2019 World Cup and 2022 T20 World Cup, Woakes begun underwhelmingly before becoming more effective. England’s hope will be that – with a combination of his trademark new ball wickets and dismissals with the old ball generated through his latest variations – the trend extends to India 2023.
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