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Archer similarities and a Broad record in sight – Ollie Robinson’s stellar start to Test cricket

by Wisden Staff 5 minute read

Ollie Robinson was England’s star man on day four of the third Test against India, claiming four wickets in an enthralling morning session to help secure an innings win – the series is now level at 1-1 with two Tests to play.

A tall, right-arm seamer who combines accuracy and movement with steep bounce, Robinson has made a strong impression in his first few matches as a Test cricketer, and earned plenty of praise from Joe Root after a Player-of-the-Match performance at Headingley.

“It’s been phenomenal to watch him perform as he has done,” said the England captain. “The Test matches he’s played, he’s had a big influence on all of them.

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“He’s been around the squad for a little while now and we’ve known how skilful he is and the question was whether he would be able to back it up in his second and third spells, when the ball’s a little bit older. He’s shown a huge amount of skill in being able to do that time and time again throughout the series and in back-to-back games, with big workloads under his belt. He’s just shown what he’s capable of doing and long may that continue.”

Just four matches into Robinson’s career, the numbers are particularly impressive. On debut against New Zealand at Lord’s earlier this summer, the Sussex quick claimed match figures of 7-101. Only three England bowlers this century have returned better on debut: James Kirtley and Toby Roland-Jones both took eight on their Test bows, while Graham Onions returned figures of 7-102 when he took on West Indies at Lord’s in 2009.

Robinson’s debut was overshadowed by the emergence of offensive tweets he’d posted in 2012 and 2013, leading to a suspension, but he was recalled for the India series and impressed once more in the first Test at Trent Bridge, claiming his first five-wicket haul. He didn’t have to wait too long for his second either – after four wickets at Lord’s in the second Test of the series, Robinson returned new Test-bests at Headingley: match figures of 7-81 and innings figures of 5-65.

Among the eight frontline fast bowlers to have debuted for England since the start of 2016, only Jofra Archer and now Robinson have managed to take multiple five-fors for England, and Archer’s stellar start to Test cricket in the summer of 2019 is similar to the results Robinson has achieved so far. After four Tests, Archer had 22 wickets at an average of 20.27 and two six-wicket hauls in the bag. Robinson has taken 23 wickets at a lowly average of 17.65.

The 27-year-old now leads the way in the ongoing series’ wicket-taking charts, having taken 16 scalps at 19.06, and finishing at the top of that list after five Tests – ahead of the likes of Bumrah, Shami and Anderson – would be quite an achievement in what remains his first summer as an international cricketer.

In the absence of the injured Stuart Broad, Robinson has stepped up for England as Anderson’s new-ball partner, and one number to keep an eye out for over the next two Tests is 25. Across his prolific career, that’s the greatest number of wickets Broad has taken in a bilateral Test series, and that was against India back in 2011 (Broad took just four Tests to get there but has failed to beat that record in the five-match Test series he’s played in). Can Robinson eclipse Broad in that department in the coming weeks? We’ll wait and see.

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