The coffee machine was on the blink at England’s team hotel on Friday morning, with Ollie Robinson – his four-week-old daughter Evie cradled in his arms – waiting patiently at the head of the queue. It felt like one of the few times this summer he had been held up by circumstances beyond his control.
Even after Pakistan’s No10 Razaullah put a small dent in his figures that evening with his six-laden innings of 81, Robinson finished the home Test season with numbers once thought possible only in the era of uncovered pitches and rudimentary batting techniques.
After taking seven wickets at 11 in his only Test against New Zealand at Lord’s, including a first over that turned into a triple-wicket maiden, he hoovered up 21 at under nine against Pakistan.
It all added up to 28 at 9.32, making him the first seamer to take 20 wickets in an English summer at an average below ten. And no English bowler of any hue has achieved the feat since Tony Lock with his left-arm spin ran through New Zealand in 1958.
‘It’ll probably never happen again,’ he said with a smile as he awaited his latte. The Australians, due here next summer to defend the Ashes, will be hoping he’s right.
One of the kneejerk responses on social media to his success has been to decry the quality of Pakistan’s batting, or to point out the assistance Robinson has received both from the pitches and from a Dukes ball that England are convinced is staying harder for longer.
The sensational Ollie Robinson finished the summer with 28 Test wickets at a 9.32 average
Yet, faced with exactly the same factors, none of his team-mates has matched his feats. Josh Tongue’s 27 wickets this summer have come at 26, Jofra Archer’s 23 at 24, and Gus Atkinson’s 14 at 30. Good numbers, certainly – but nothing to touch Robinson.
Equally, there have been bowler-friendly summers before, but Robinson is nudging his way into some serious statistical company.
Only three England bowlers have taken more than his 104 Test wickets at an average lower than his 19: SF Barnes took 189 at 16, Johnny Briggs 118 at 17, and George Lohmann 112 at ten. Of those, Barnes played most recently – in 1914. There is a case, then, for arguing that Robinson is England’s most effective bowler for 112 years.
Plenty has been said about his long absence from the side under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes – essentially because of his relaxed attitude to fitness, which drove the management to distraction and eventually, in India in 2023-24, tipped them over the edge.
And history appeared to be repeating itself when the Bazballers didn’t trust him to get through the decider against New Zealand at Trent Bridge in June, after he missed the Oval Test because of a knee niggle.
But, under Joe Root, Robinson was straight into the side against Pakistan, and took a wicket with the first ball of the series, nipping one back into the pads of Azan Awais at Headingley, and rarely pausing for breath.
Of his 28 victims this summer, 12 have been leg-before, and another five bowled. Nine have fallen for ducks, 11 more in single figures. He has been relentless.
‘I’ve been trying to set the tone and land it on the spot,’ he told Ian Ward on Sky Sports before play on Friday. ‘Luckily, the batters are either nicking it or missing it.’
He has been thrown into the deep end under Joe Root after a lack of trust from Ben Stokes
He was being unduly modest. Robinson worked on his fitness while playing grade cricket for the University of Sydney over the winter, and was then made captain of Sussex’s red-ball team – a move he said had given him the ‘drive and motivation to love the game again’. England now use him to select which ball to pick from the box of options supplied by the umpires.
He has also been tweaking his skills and his action, working on his wobble-seam deliveries, while passing on advice to Tongue, and standing up a fraction taller at the crease. That has reduced his pace, from an average of nearly 83mph against South Africa four years ago to 78 against Pakistan.
Previously, England might have held that against him. But he has been so accurate that it hasn’t mattered. Besides, the speed is provided by Archer, Tongue and Atkinson. They dovetail nicely, even if Razaullah made them look pedestrian for two hours on Friday evening.
He has been helped, too, by the wicketkeeping of Jamie Smith and, in Pakistan’s second innings at Edgbaston, Jordan Cox, who were both excellent standing up to the stumps and creating a sense of claustrophobia from which the batsmen rarely escaped.
Above all, it all feels like a second chance for a 32-year-old who thought his time had gone. ‘I thought I’d never play for England again,’ he said after Root’s team sealed a 3-0 win. ‘But I’ve got a new ambition to keep going and push on. There’s still a lot of hard work to do, but I’m just getting started.’
The three-match series in South Africa starting on December 17 will present a different challenge, with pitches in Johannesburg, Centurion and Cape Town less likely to do his bidding. For now, though, he can reflect on a job done so remorselessly that the record books have had as little respite as Pakistan’s batsmen.
