The Ashes bowling coach, David Saker rejoins England’s Test squad
Ben Stokes, the Test captain, reached out to David Saker, who served as England’s bowling coach during their journey to the No. 1 Test ranking ten years ago, and Saker has agreed to take on the position once more for this summer’s Ashes.
Saker, 56, is working with England’s white-ball team in Bangladesh right now, but he’s decided to join the red-ball team over the English summer and reclaim a position he held from 2010 to 2015, including two previous Ashes victories in 2010-11 and 2013. He also played the same job between 2016 and 2019 for Australia, where he was born.
“I don’t think I’ll do much Test cricket, but I’m doing the Ashes,” Saker told reporters in Dhaka. “Ben said: ‘I’d like to get you involved in the Ashes.’ Rob Key, managing director, had already floated it a little bit, but being so busy I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to do it.”
“Once Stokesy pushed it, it made it an easy decision. I said yes straight away because of the magnitude of the occasion. I’ve been involved in Ashes with both parties and cricket is as exciting as it gets. It’s the biggest Test event.”
Given his focus on attitude over skill, Saker’s strategies would seem to be a good fit for England’s current Test team, which has two of his former charges in James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who are about to begin their tenth and ninth Ashes campaigns, respectively.
“Working with England the first time was so much fun,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to do the Ashes with this group because they are the best team in the world to watch at the moment.
“Baz [Brendon McCullum] will pick a team that he thinks will win and he’ll explain what he wants from the players and then it’s my job to make sure they can deliver that,” he added.
“The evolution of Jimmy and Broady, they’re so confident in what they can do and they just go out and do it. That’s what you want from your bowling group. My job is to make sure the bowlers are doing that.
“It’s also creating an atmosphere in the dressing room that’s enjoyable. There’s no doubt that people are enjoying turning up to that Test team. It sounds like it’s a small thing, but the dressing-room atmosphere is a huge thing in international cricket.”
The England team that claimed victory in Australia in 2010–11 before dominating the Test rankings the following summer was fortunate to have a core of exceptional fast bowlers, led by Anderson and Broad but also including Chris Tremlett, Steven Finn, and Tim Bresnan who were all at the top of their games at the time.
Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, two of the fastest bowlers in the modern game, might be in England’s squad of fast bowlers for this summer’s Ashes, which Saker believes could offer them an advantage in their attempt to claim a series against Australia for the first time since 2015.
“To win Ashes and big series you need a good battery of fast bowlers and that is definitely the case about England,” he said. “You can say the same about the Australians, but playing on your home patch is always an advantage for a bowling group.
“It’s exciting if we can have Jofra Archer and Mark Wood available. Whether you play them together is another thing, but you need that pace against the Australians. The thing those sorts of bowlers can do, they can bowl a spell that can crack a game open.
“The key is to have a group of fast bowlers ready to get selected, so it makes it tough for the selection committee to make a decision. When you get that you usually get a pretty strong team.”