Ben Foakes intent on grabbing Test chance as part of England’s reboot

Welcome to the reboot. The costumes are the same and you’ll recognise some of the main characters, but there’s no doubt that the West Indies tour that begins this coming week is meant to kick off a new narrative arc for the failing franchise that is the England men’s team. Clearly, Andrew Strauss was impressed by what Tom Holland did for Spider-Man: England have landed in Antigua with a young cast bursting with peppy enthusiasm.

They have also dropped their two legacy stars; for those of us still contemplating the pointlessness of a Sex and the City sequel without Samantha, the omission of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad has come at a particularly raw moment. There’s better news, however, for all the glovework geeks and stumping superfans out there: Ben Foakes, the Best Wicketkeeper in the World (source: Alec Stewart), will be back in the team, a year after he played his last Test match. And it’s not a little poignant his return to the side comes in Antigua, given this was the island where he lost his spot as England’s first-choice keeper three years ago.

For those who struggle to remember those pre-Covid years, Foakes arrived for England’s last West Indies tour “on cloud nine”, in his words, after a sensational start to his Test career in Sri Lanka where he scored a century on debut. He had a bad game in Barbados, scoring two and five as England collapsed to 77 in their first innings and lost by 381 runs; when they were trounced again in Antigua, Foakes was the first to pay the price.

“It’s fair to say at the time I thought I might get a slightly longer run,” he says. “But when you’re new into a team and you are losing then I guess you are vulnerable.”

Confused and disappointed, he stumbled through the following season