Warwickshire all-rounder Chris Woakes is eager to make up for lost time after returning to action following an injury which stalled what had been, up to that point, an excellent 2011 for him.
Woakes returned to the Bears’ team last week after a month on the sidelines resting his right shin which had suffered a stress reaction to the 22-year-old’s almost non-stop cricket schedule over the last two years.
The first five months of this year brought the Aston Manor product further strides on what has been, thus far, a career of rapid and comfortably-taken strides.
Woakes made his senior England debut in January when, already in Australia working with the England Performance Programme, he was called up for the T20 and one-day-international series against the Aussies.
He started in sensational fashion by hitting the winning runs off the last ball of his debut in a T20 thriller at Adelaide.
Minutes earlier he had provided one of the champagne moments of England’s champagne winter when, faced with a volley of sledging from fast-bowler Shaun Tait, he responded by lifting the next ball miles over mid-wicket for six.
Here, clearly, was a young Englishman who might not bark too much but has quite a bite.
After the Australia trip, Woakes’s winter was far from finished as he travelled straight to the Caribbean and scored a century against Jamaica for England Lions.
Then, back in England, be began the county season with 15 wickets in the first two championship games, helping to bowl Somerset out for just 50 at Taunton before hounding Worcestershire to defeat at New Road.
Woakes is now delighted to be back in action after the enforced hiatus to his season. And he admits his rise into the senior England side, aged just 21, in the New Year came as a surprise – and “amazing” one.
“The call-up for the one-day squad was a bit of a shock,” he said. “I was out in Australia with the EPP working on a few things technique-wise both bowling and batting and got the call-up and it was an amazing feeling to put on an England shirt for the first time.
“While we didn’t produce the goods as a team, I felt that I did reasonably well. To do what I did on my debut and see the boys over the line was an amazing feeling.
“I don’t think I can say in a family newspaper what Tait said to me but a few words were exchanged. He didn’t say anything afterwards – he was firmly walking back to his mark by the time the ball had landed in the stands!
“It was a great moment to see the boys to victory. I didn’t do anything amazing with the ball but I held my own. When you open the bowling in T20 it either goes your way or it doesn’t.
