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It’s an absolute statement of fact that no-one remotely cares whether England win rain-reduced one-dayers against Sri Lanka. England fans care whether England have an England fast bowler playing for England though.
In Olly Stone, maybe they sort of do. And maybe he’ll play a quarter or a third of England’s major games in the next year or so.
Stone’s first international wicket was Niroshan Dickwella. He bounced the shit out of him with a ball that was clocked at… 82mph.
It looked quick though. It probably was quick. Other deliveries definitely were quick. On commentary, Mahela Jayawardene said Stone looked “absolutely brilliant” which is a pretty weighty compliment to attract within the first four overs of your international career.
Frankly, we’re delighted that England have access to someone who’s maybe a fast bowler. A maybe-fast bowler makes life better even when he doesn’t play because you can say “they should have picked Stone” whenever the other bowlers look a bit limp.
Having a theoretical solution to the problems playing out in front of you is a much better way of watching your team lose a cricket match than having to go “well, there’s nothing anyone could have done differently, this defeat was simply unavoidable.”
Definitely not fast medium then?
Sometimes. But not 100 per cent of the time.
The good news for Olly Stone is that his international debut wicket was a man named Dickwella.
Nobody can ever take that away from Olly – he can say, “Dickwella” as the answer to one of the more obvious questions he will be asked for the rest of his life.
Similarly, my comedy lyrics debuted at Edinburgh in a show named, “Whoops Vicar, Is That Your Dick?”
http://ianlouisharris.com/1992/02/29/the-ultimate-love-song-whoops-vicar-newsrevue-ben-murphy-29-february-1992/
Nobody can ever take that exotic factoid away from me either.
I only caught a bit of England’s performance yesterday morning but was pretty impressed with the little bit I saw.
Presumably his favourite shot is the sweep off the legs.