‘It feels a bit like club cricket’: Foakes providing calm amid Bazball storm

I f it sounded a bit village it is because it pretty much was. When Ben Foakes came out to bat ahead of Ben Stokes on day three in Mount Maunganui, the promotion was not some tactical masterstroke but rather because his captain had just sat on the toilet.

A future after-dinner story that emerged from England’s 267-run win over New Zealand in the first Test, the wicketkeeper frantically scrambling to strap his pads, and then delivering such a calm half-century, also said a bit about the team’s current disposition.

“It kind of feels a bit like club cricket,” said Foakes, whose measured 80-ball 51 that afternoon allowed Stuart Broad’s four-wicket surge to begin under lights and set up the 1-0 lead England now take to Basin Reserve on Friday.

“When I first came into the team, the pressures involved in Test cricket were so extreme. You were so worried about playing a false shot and things like that. Sometimes now you can get out in a weird way and it’s kind of a joke. It’s taken the pressure completely off. If you fail it doesn’t matter because there’s a bigger end goal.

“It’s unleashing potential and a lot of guys are tapping into their one-day cricket and the crossover between the two is working really well.”

Rarely in Surrey’s white-ball teams over the past two years, Foakes was initially unsure if his matinee idol face would fit when Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took charge of the Test team last summer. Despite those silken gloves, he feared a first-class strike-rate of 50 with the bat might not be what they were looking for.

“I’m not, as you’d say, Bazball,” he explained. “But it hasn’t been ‘you have to try and hit every ball for six’, it’s been ‘play your way but if you think the option is on, don’t um and ah