Until last season, Jake Ball struggled for a regular place in Nottinghamshire’s County Championship side. Now he is on the brink of an England call-up
Tim Wigmore10-May-2016The warmth with which James Whitaker, the national selector, greeted Jake Ball when they bumped into each other at Lord’s told its own tale. Whitaker was about to join the other England selectors to debate selection for the first Test against Sri Lanka and, it seems certain, confirm Ball’s elevation to the squad.”If I get selected in the squad it would be unbelievable,” Ball says. “It’s a bit of a whirlwind – one that I’m really enjoying and can hopefully continue.”Observers of the early skirmishes of the county cricket season have been united in their praise for Ball. He is a bowler sturdily built and able to generate pace, bounce and seam movement from a muscular, rhythmical action: the sort that can be reliably replicated under pressure. With the older ball he has a penchant for generating reverse swing too. As former England bowler and now correspondent Mike Selvey, a shrewd judge of pace bowlers, recently put it: “Jake Ball just looks right.”Ball, 25, is a cricketer built on very traditional foundations. His father was a miner, the profession that once underpinned England’s fast bowling stocks. Three generations of his family have been involved in Welbeck Cricket Club in Warsop, including Ball’s uncle Bruce French, who played 16 Tests for England as a wicketkeeper in the 1980s.”From a very early age I was watching my family members play cricket. As soon as I was old enough to hold a bat I was holding a bat. As soon as I was old enough to bowl I was bowling,” Ball says. “My older brother Jonathan was more of a batter and I used to bowl at him in the back garden – that’s why I became a bowler. We’ve got quite a long family history in cricket and with Bruce playing for England I’d love to follow in his footsteps.”In the early years of his career it seemed an impossible dream: Ball could not even get in his county team. After playing for England Under-19s in 2010, Ball’s progress stalled to the extent that he had played only seven first-class matches and claimed 17 wickets before turning 24.
Extra bounce and extra nip gets good players out and so far this season it seems to be doing the job
“Notts is the sort of club where there’s a lot of competition for places. We’ve had a lot of very good and very experienced bowlers so for me it was about really proving what I could do in the second team, earning my chance and pushing on from there.”While he waited for his opportunity to play more than just white-ball cricket, Ball did not make any dramatic changes to his bowling. Instead, he believes the decisive shift happened off the field. In the winter of 2014-15, Ball spent copious hours spent in the gym, watching (he reckons he would have been involved in property had his cricket not taken off).”I had a really good winter in the gym, got fit and strong, and really hit the ground running. I’ve always had quick spells in me, but I didn’t think I was strong enough to maintain the pace through a spell or through a season. I’ve got the strength now.”He proved as much in 2015, taking 39 Championship wickets. It was a breakthrough season, and the England selectors took immediate notice of his cocktail of quick bowling skills, rewarding his breakthrough season with a Lions tour to the UAE, for a one-day series against Pakistan A. “To have Andy Flower as your coach for the winter is a big boost, and I learned a lot from him and other players out there,” Ball says.Jake Ball has been one of the stand-out bowlers this season•Getty ImagesAhead of the 2016 season, he resolved to be more savvy in “knowing when to attack and when to defend and not going searching for wickets, which I was a little bit guilty of last year. This year I’ve just tried to hit the same length every time and hope the batter makes a mistake.”Often enough they have. At the start of the month against Yorkshire, Ball twice dismissed Joe Root, the world’s No. 2 Test batsman. In the first innings, a sumptuous delivery seamed in just enough to kiss the edge of Root’s bat to slip. “Getting those sorts of players out gives you a good indication of where your game’s at,” he says. “Extra bounce and extra nip gets good players out and so far this season it seems to be doing the job.”These are the words of a man not lacking in confidence. A few weeks ago Ball retweeted his team-mate Steven Mullaney’s assessment of his England ambitions: “I don’t think he’s ready. I know he’s ready.”Of all Ball’s attributes – his jarring length, his consistency and a dangerous yorker – opportunism stands foremost. Few beyond regular watchers of the county shires knew of his existence a month ago. Now, with Mark Wood and Mark Footitt injured and Chris Jordan playing in the IPL, Ball has vaulted to the brink of Test selection. That Mick Newell, his coach, is also an England selector is handy too.”It’s good that he gets to see me bowl all the time. It gives me every opportunity to push my case for England selection.”Ball has shown the same sense of timing that has defined Stuart Broad’s Test career. And he is not about to stop those who spot a likeness in the bowling style of the two men.”There’s been a few comparisons. He’s the No. 1 Test bowler in the world so he’s not a bad person to be following,” he says. During Broad’s rare stint in county cricket at the start of this season, Ball has sought to learn from him at ever turn. “Observing, watching what he does and in the bar or at the team hotel going up and having a word with him and picking his brains about the way he goes about things and bowls at batsmen. I pick up ideas off him there.”Now Ball hopes to join Broad in the Test team. If he does so, he would rekindle memories of the age when Nottinghamshire fast bowlers were a mainstay of the England side: it is 84 years since the Bodyline series, when Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, two products of the Nottinghamshire coal mines, bowled England to Ashes victory.”It would mean the world. It’s something I’ve been working towards from as soon as I could hold a bat. You watch England players and that’s where you want to be.”