In less than two months, uncapped players have become senior players, as if by osmosis. Gus Atkinson and Jamie Smith, who both made their Test debuts on July 10 at Lord’s, have shown such a combination of skills well suited to the international game and equable temperaments that they are both ensconced in the side.
Picking Hull fits within a guiding principle of England’s regeneration: focusing on a player’s attributes, not their domestic records. Hull has taken just 16 wickets at an average of 62.8 in 10 first-class games. Yet Brendon McCullum identified the Leicestershire bowler as a “rough diamond”, on account of his 6ft 7in height and left-arm angle.
Similar thinking led to Shoaib Bashir being picked to tour India at the start of the year with a first-class average of 67. Bashir, though still developing his craft to right-handers – he will appreciate the rough created by Hull’s footmarks – has performed solidly after usurping Jack Leach as first-choice spinner. Leach remains Somerset’s first-choice, but to England such considerations are moot: they regard the attributes required to succeed in county and Test cricket as completely different.
Similar thinking will now permeate the white-ball side, especially after McCullum’s appointment as all-format coach. A drab performance in the T20 World Cup in June brought an end to Matthew Mott’s tenure, following a run of three victories in 12 games against Test opponents in the last two World Cups.
As they extend their spirit of regeneration to limited-overs cricket too, England’s T20 squad for the series against Australia, which begins on Wednesday, includes six players uncapped in the format. Twenty-year-old Jacob Bethell, a Warwickshire left-hander with a high backlift and abundant self-belief, is perhaps the most effervescent.
Yet, for all the focus upon the England side, the sense of regeneration extends to county cricket. This is most obvious in the children of the 2005 Ashes side making their way in the shires: 16-year-old Rocky Flintoff at Lancashire and 18-year-old Archie Vaughan at Somerset.
