Carse joins pace party and repays England faith

Brydon Carse was standing in the Christchurch sunshine, clutching his player-of-the-match award.

Patiently waiting to give another interview, he let his guard down for a split second. Out of nowhere he was tackled to the ground by England team-mate Harry Brook.

It was the first mistake Carse had made for four days.

The 29-year-old has been England's best bowler this winter. His 10-wicket haul in the defeat of New Zealand was the first by an England pace bowler away from home in 16 years. Carse already has 19 wickets in his three Tests, nine of them in two matches on unresponsive pitches in Pakistan.

The Durham man is England's latest selection success, yet it was only a few months ago that Carse thought his Test dream was over.

Historical bets on cricket matches - 303 of them placed between 2017 and 2019 - resulted in a three-month ban from cricket in May. Fearing for his future, Carse sought out his county team-mate and England captain Ben Stokes, who knows what it's like to be staring into uncertainty.

"I spoke to him a lot and spent a lot of time with him around that ban," said Stokes. "When those things are coming from someone who knows what it's like to go through certain stuff it means a bit more."

England let Carse keep his central contract and he was back in the international fold at the first opportunity for the white-ball series against Australia in September.

Carse said he "can't thank Stokes enough". Ten-wicket hauls are a pretty good way to go about it. England looked after Carse. Now Carse is looking after England.

Even before the ban, Carse had taken a circuitous route to the England Test team. Born in South Africa, he has the coordinates of his place of birth in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) tattooed on his arm.

His father James played county cricket for Northamptonshire in the 1980s. The holder of a British passport, Carse qualified for England in 2019 and made his international debut two years later when an entire one-day squad had to be replaced because of a Covid outbreak.

Part of the Lions party shadowing the senior squad in Australia in 2021-22, Carse suffered a serious knee injury. It ruined his outside shout of a mid-series Ashes call-up.

Without the ban he would have been in line for a Test debut last summer, instead watching Gus Atkinson, Olly Stone and Josh Hull get a chance. Now he has his, Carse has thrived.

He is another England have identified as having the credentials for Test cricket despite not necessarily showing them in first-class cricket. Before his ban, Carse was averaging 106 with the ball for Durham this year. Prior to Christchurch he had not taken a first-class five-wicket haul in more than three years.

Carse said surfaces in county cricket don't usually have the "carry" to suit his style of bowling. He likes to hit the deck.

In the Cricviz database dating back to 2006, there are 156 right-arm pace bowlers who have sent down at least 500 deliveries in Test cricket. With an average length of 8.5m away from the striker's stumps, Carse bowls shorter than all of them.

In Christchurch, only 8% of the deliveries in Carse's 38.1 overs would have challenged the stumps. In pushing batters back, his full deliveries become dangerous. He claimed three lbws and a bowled as part of his 10 wickets.

With Atkinson enjoying such a stellar year since making his debut in James Anderson's farewell Test, the terrifying prospect of England's life without Anderson and Stuart Broad seems less scary. In their combined 151 Tests away from home, neither Anderson nor Broad managed a 10-wicket haul.

If Carse is going fulfil Stokes' prophecy that he will "play for England for a long time", he has to go against recent history.

Since 1990, only seven seamers have been older than Carse when making their Test debut for England. Of those, Toby Roland-Jones won the most caps, with four. Carse could outdo him by the end of the New Zealand tour.

Fitness permitting, England's pace party is looking a little crowded. There is the ongoing soap opera of Jofra Archer's journey back to Test cricket, in which the latest cliffhanger is his Indian Premier League deal with Rajasthan Royals.

Given the success of the fast bowlers who are fit enough to play Tests is it time to wonder if Archer, talented as he is, gets in a first-choice England team? The Archer of 2019 was electric, but it is surely fanciful to think he can recreate that magic having not played first-class cricket since 2021.

One bowler certain to return is Mark Wood, out until the new year with an elbow injury.

Carse has filled the gap left by Wood and strengthened the cartel of Durham's England fast bowlers that also includes Potts and Stokes. There are more on the way, too. Keep an eye on 19-year-old Daniel Hogg and 17-year-old James Minto.

The lineage is strong: Steve Harmison, Graham Onions and Liam Plunkett. Carse has worked with Onions at Durham and has Harmison as a mentor. They play golf together.

Carse was the engineer of a successful week for England, with so many boxes ticked: Shoaib Bashir, Ollie Pope and Brook.

The last was the 37-ball fifty for 21-year-old debutant Jacob Bethell, who showed why England rate him so highly. With Pat Butcher hair and zinc across his cheeks, Bethell looked like a gap-year backpacker showing off in a Sunday club game. It's probably beerpong later. He is surely inked in for the second Test.

Stokes' back is one to keep an eye on, as is the form of Zak Crawley. The opener has not reached 30 in his past six knocks and averages less than 10 in 17 innings against New Zealand.

Still, New Zealand go to the second Test in Wellington with more problems. In 2023 their biggest problem at the Basin Reserve was following on, which they did, then they pulled off an all-timer of a one-run win. Another classic, please.