Ben Foakes must play in Ashes – he turns chances into wickets

When a team spends the best part of three days and 215.5 overs in the field, as England have done in Wellington, the first thought is for how the bowlers fared. Knackered to a man, it is fair to say. But they are not closely involved in every delivery; nor are they even always on the field for the whole time.

Ben Foakes, behind the stumps, was — and it was testimony to his training and skill that he performed as superbly on the fourth day of the match as he had on the second and third. When half-chances may be the best chances you get, you have to make the most of them — and he did. He played as big a part as anyone in New Zealand’s long second innings being snuffed out.

● Mike Atherton’s report from day four — with scoreboard

It was a good illustration of why Foakes must play in the Ashes this summer, when a sliver of an opportunity must similarly be seized, not squandered. There is a line of argument that when Jonny Bairstow returns to the side, as he must, he could return to the role of batsman-wicketkeeper that he held for so long. But apart from Foakes being the best wicketkeeper England have got, this would be asking a lot of someone who is recovering from a triple-broken fibula and a dislocated ankle. It seems a needless gamble.

Foakes, appealing unsuccessfully with Zak Crawley, was as key as any Englishman during the hosts’ second innings

ANDREW CORNAGA/PHOTOSPORT VIA AP

There were three incidents that stood out. The first came during the morning session when Jack Leach spun a ball past Kane Williamson’s outside edge before he had reached fifty; Foakes gathered the ball wide to his right, saw that Williamson (who has been stumped only once in 161 Test innings) had stretched far forward, and duly swept off the bails. It took several replays for the third umpire, Aleem Dar, to conclude that Williamson’s back boot was behind the line by a few millimetres. It was an exceptionally fleet piece of work.

The second came after tea with England’s hopes fading. Ben Stokes at the interval had told his players to stay strong and enjoy the struggle; an opening would come. It arrived, improbably, when Stokes threw the ball to Harry Brook. Foakes has briefly kept wicket to Brook’s unorthodox bowling before — two years ago for England Lions — so knew more than most what to expect, but there is no preparation for a stray delivery slung down the leg side. It melted into Foakes’s gloves nonetheless. Lo and behold, replays showed Williamson had feathered it.

The third was the clever part Foakes played in the run-out of Michael Bracewell. The batsmen were in the process of completing three and as he ran to Foakes’s end, Bracewell clearly did not sense the danger. Foakes shrewdly did nothing to disabuse him, even though Stokes’s throw was coming in like a tracer-bullet, and he took off the bails with Bracewell yet to ground his bat.

“He’s always Mr Reliable behind the stumps,” Leach said. “He’s the best that I’ve experienced and it makes a huge difference. We love having him in the team. That run-out [of Bracewell], just the thinking to do it how he did it. Stokes’s throw-in was full of energy, but then for Foakesy to do that, I thought, was very clever. That was a big moment.”

It should also be noted that shortly before Daryl Mitchell was out, cramped for room pulling at a short ball from Stuart Broad, Foakes had moved up to the stumps to keep him pinned to the crease.

Foakes has had a turbulent winter. He was earmarked to keep wicket in the first Test in Pakistan but was forced out by illness; he then could not get back into the side for the next game because England wanted to play an extra bowler. Ollie Pope was an adequate understudy though not a long-term threat, but the move suggested that for all his accomplishment with the gloves Foakes was an easy choice of sacrifice should the greater good demand one.

Foakes admits that in his early days as an England player he fretted over making mistakes and losing his place, but he has learnt to be more philosophical about what fate might have in store for him, an attitude reinforced by the relaxed style of England’s new management. Foakes now likens the England dressing room to club cricket: more fun, less stress.

Since returning to the side, Foakes has contributed in every game. He scored an important half-century and was involved in five dismissals in Karachi, and made runs in both innings in Mount Maunganui. It would be best to draw a veil over his comical dismissal in the first innings in Wellington, when he fell over his own feet and, while completing an ungainly Chaturanga, was stumped.

Foakes celebrates the wicket of Tim Southee with Jack Leach

MARTY MELVILLE/GETTY IMAGES

Unlike many of those around him, his batting is conventional. He is not really one for scoops, ramps and towering sixes. “I’m not, as you’d say, ‘Bazball’,” he said last week. “A strength of mine is to play slightly more ‘normal’ cricket, bridging the gap between our explosive starts and batting with the tail. Some of these guys have got more ability to hit it all over the place. I don’t think it’s smart for me to try to be Ben Stokes or Harry Brook.”

However he goes about his game, there must be room for someone as gifted as this.