I told you 18 months ago England star Ben Foakes was world-class, says Surrey boss Alec Stewart

'World-class': Stewart says Foakes has been ready for Test cricket for two years
AFP/Getty Images
Chris Stocks7 November 2018

Whenever Ben Foakes gets a mention, Alec Stewart’s description of him 18 months ago is rarely too far away. “The best wicketkeeper in the world,” said Surrey’s director of cricket of a player and art he knows better than most.

But Stewart did not consider that the whole story. “I stick by what I said,” he says now. “I haven’t seen a better keeper currently playing the game, but he is good enough to be a Test batsman.”

When Foakes was selected as Jonny Bairstow’s wicketkeeping understudy for England’s epic Antipodean winter last year, Stewart’s main advice was to work diligently on his glovework, but to try to break into the side as a batsman, too. In Australia, he was considered ahead of spare bat Gary Ballance should a spot come up.

Now, he has proved Stewart exactly right with a composed, classy century from No7 on Test debut — the second, after Matt Prior, by an England keeper on debut, and the first by an English keeper in Asia — and tidy work behind the stumps, with two catches and a stumping this morning.

As coach Michael di Venuto put it on Twitter, he was “showing the world what we at Surrey have known for a while... he’s a bloody good player”. Foakes and Rory Burns make it seven Surrey debutants in England’s last 13. It was with another of those, Sam Curran, that Foakes shared yesterday’s key partnership, of 88. A good year for the club is not letting up.

Stewart believes Foakes’s century was at once a “rush job” and a long waiting game for a player who, at 25, he believes has been ready for Test cricket for two years.

Why the rush? Foakes was planning six months off, having been spending his winters on Lions tours and the like since 2012-13 — way back when he was 19 and Ben Stokes and James Taylor were still Lions. He began this summer desperate to play after a mentally-taxing winter as England’s drinks-carrying gopher (a tougher role than it sounds) and ended it tired, a little sore and resolved to step away from the game, starting with a trip to Lisbon with Surrey team-mates Arun Harinath and Ryan Patel.

It was there that word began to filter through about Bairstow’s injury and, after some rumours and a call to Stewart, the selectors’ call finally came.

As soon as Bairstow got injured, England head coach Trevor Bayliss was keen but, with Jos Buttler (who had sore webbing in his hand) about, national selector Ed Smith took a little more persuading.

Foakes got himself into the indoor nets at the Kia Oval, where Stewart and Harinath fed the ball machine to get him ready. On arrival in Sri Lanka, Joe Denly had played himself out of contention and, suddenly, Foakes was in.

That he was ready, Stewart believes, is testament to Foakes’s technique, mental strength and the fact that through England’s pathway, this is his sixth visit to Sri Lanka. The situation was tricky yesterday: England 103 for five on a spinning pitch after a series of poor dismissals. Even this morning, resuming on 87 with two tail-end wickets for company, he was the picture of calm.

“It was a rush job,” adds Stewart, “but it shows that if you’ve got a safe technique that you trust, even when you haven’t played for weeks, you can fall back on something you trust implicitly — and that showed in Galle.

Debut ton: Ben Foakes
AFP/Getty Images

“He is a fine player of spin and has been for a while. He learnt a lot from [former Surrey team-mate Kumar] Sangakkara, they are good mates and talk a lot, and he spent a lot of time in the subcontinent with the Lions and Under-19s, so he’s had good exposure. In the last 18 months, his all-round batting has gone up a notch or two.

“The best thing is that because he understands and trusts his method, he doesn’t have to go searching. Some of England’s earlier dismissals were the result of batsmen searching, it was a bit reckless, thinking they needed to get some runs before a ball gets them. Foakes’s mentality was very much, ‘I’m just going to bat’. He just batted sensibly and has got England out of jail, really.”

By the time Bairstow upped his recovery with his keeping practise at lunchtime on day two, Foakes had his first Test catch after an innings that complicates the log-jam of talented all-rounders suited to batting between five and seven. Next week, in Kandy — and further down the track — selection will be a puzzle. Stewart does not think England will mind, saying: “They are the big decisions they get paid the big bucks to make!”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in