Ollie Robinson, despite some historic idiocy off the pitch, has had a hugely promising start to his England career on it. England’s two great seamers, Stuart Broad and James Anderson, are 35 and 39 respectively, and although their powers seem only to be growing, it will be on the newly remodeled selection committee’s mind that their heirs must be found sooner rather than later.
Robinson has almost immediately suggested that he will be the one to step into their substantial shoes, bowling a relentless line and length, swinging and seaming it both ways and extracting variable, awkward bounce from the substantial height that he generates.
In fact, during the first Test match of the five-match series between England and India at Trent Bridge, Robinson became the first man to begin his England Test career by taking three or more wickets in his first three innings since Nick Cook in 1983. He is the first seamer to achieve the feat since David Larter in 1962-1963.
After the incident involving historic, racist tweets, Robinson – having served his punishment – deserves to be complimented for the amount of talk around about his on field exploits rather than the ignorance he showed as a young man. As this India series develops, he will be a key man for England in building pressure on the tourists’ batting lineup in favourable conditions.
