Despite being one of the few fast bowlers whose fitness has stayed largely intact over the last year, Matthew Potts has once again found himself on England’s periphery ahead of the series against India.
When the squad was announced for the first Test, Potts was the only notable still-fit absentee from the squad against Zimbabwe. Gus Atkinson’s hamstring meant he didn’t feature, while England’s new inclusions from that game – Sam Cook and Josh Tongue – kept their places. More surprising was the recall of Jamie Overton. Overton has played one Test, back in 2022, and only featured in one of Surrey’s Championship games this season after returning from the IPL. He also broke his finger less than a week before the squad was revealed.
Speaking alongside the squad announcement, England selector Luke Wright said: “It’s really tough on Pottsy. Looking at the squad, we wanted that option of a varied attack, so it was probably between him and Cooky [Sam Cook] for that other spare bowler if we were to lose [someone like] Woakesy. And we felt that someone like Cooky has just got the edge with that new ball.
“We’ve spoken many times about this varied attack. We want to make sure that we’ve still got some pace and I think Jamie [Overton] showed in white-ball cricket for us that he’s got a huge amount of pace there and bounce, he’s a real threat. He’s obviously had a taste of Test cricket before and did well, he got some runs there as well, which is great.”
A Test comeback after three years.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) June 5, 2025
Jamie Overton, recovering from a broken finger, has been recalled to the Test set-up for the first time since making his debut against New Zealand.#JamieOverton #ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/zn5TIp9rne
The reasons given for Potts' omission – wanting the extra pace Overton can bring and needing new-ball cover in case of injury – sum up why Potts' Test career has been so stop-start since his debut during the first throes of the Stokes-McCullum era in 2022. While he’s a proven performer at Test level, he’s yet to find an identity as a bowler that marks him out as a pack-leading specialist.
On his Test debut, he was one quarter of a pace-attack otherwise made up of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes. There was no question of what Potts’ role would be in that attack, as a first-change bowler to come on when the blockbuster new-ball pairing grew tired. Only once that summer did he deviate from that role, when Anderson didn’t play at Headingley.
When he was first selected, Rob Key gave a clear outline of what he saw Potts bringing to the side. “We see him as a point of difference,” said Key. “You see the way he runs in, the way that it looks like if you’re facing him, you’re in a proper contest… These are the picks I get really excited about.”
Over the course of that summer, Potts largely fulfilled that brief. He took 20 wickets at 28 apiece as an impact bowler in an attack without an out and out speedster. Sending the ball down in the mid 80s, he also established himself as someone to run in and bowl long spells late into the day. When he was left out at the end of the summer after the first Test of the South Africa series, then opposition captain Dean Elgar expressed his surprise at the decision given Potts’ performance level. His omission came not long after he’d suffered heat stroke during an ODI in Durham, and his numbers were starting to reflect that a busy summer was starting to take its toll on a 22-year-old in the first outings of his international career. Nevertheless, his performances across the summer gained him the reputation of a banker for the future.
However, England’s attack has changed significantly since 2022, and that role envisioned for Potts at the start of his career hasn’t materialised. He was replaced by Ollie Robinson, who shared the new ball duties with Anderson and Broad at the end of that summer before starring in a different role alongside Mark Wood in the Pakistan series win that winter. Potts played just one Test in 2023, against Ireland at Lord’s, which also saw the emergence of Tongue as a promising future talent. Since then, despite Robinson falling away as a threat to his place, Potts’ Test opportunities have been sporadic. He played the first two Tests against Sri Lanka last summer, one in Pakistan and one in New Zealand.
Perhaps the greatest problem Potts’ faces is the fitness of Stokes. In the four-man attack picked in 2022 amidst another injury crisis, Potts’ ability to bowl spells at different points in the game, both with the new ball – a role he mostly plays in Durham’s Championship side – and to hit the deck with the older ball, made him an attractive option. Since then, however, Potts’ has only featured in two Tests that Stokes has been fit to bowl in. When Stokes is able to, he delivers with the old ball and the balance he provides in the top six allows England to field an express pace impact option Key once marked Potts’ out to play.
Outside of Stokes, England have their specialists. They have their new ball options in Woakes, Atkinson and Sam Cook – opening bowlers who can offer a level slightly above what Potts’ can in that role. They have their express quicks, with Wood, Overton, Tongue, Olly Stone and Jofra Archer all operating at speeds a notch above Potts’, and able to get more bounce and the X-factor Key openly wants in the attack. There’s also the emergence of Brydon Carse as that impact player, who also proved highly effective with the old ball in New Zealand.
Simply, Stokes allows England to field an attack of specialists, where previously bowlers have been required to fill multiple roles in a limited pack. Potts hasn’t quite fulfilled Key’s early assessment as that point of difference and, despite their injury crisis, others have risen above him in that field. While a brutal call to take for Potts, his omission is the clearest view yet of exactly where he sits in the pecking order.
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