Ollie Robinson puts the ball in the right place.
His problems are with everything else. If cricket was simply about his one skill, he’d be one of the best in the world. Instead, he is not even in England’s team that much. His great bowling average is more of an albatross to him. How can you take wickets at 22, and be out of the side in your early 30s? Well, Ollie managed that.
And it wasn’t like he was just out of the side, or pushed out by other great bowlers. Last summer, England used what was left of Chris Woakes. Robinson hasn’t even been a fringe squad member.
Ollie Robinson might put the ball in the right place, but he put himself in a terrible one.
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On day two of the first Ashes Test at the Gabba in 2021/22, Robinson looked done. Physically, he was moving as if it was day 25 of the series, and England had been a bowler short. Looking at his figures is misleading, because he had 3/58 from his 23 overs. And that was against Travis Head, who was destroying everyone else.
But it was the optics; it was his first real bowling day, and he looked like he’d been locked in a sauna.
By the second Test, he was bowling offspin.
No one should ever knowingly bowl offies in Australia. Sure, if it’s your only option, and maybe if you were born there. But it’s the worst style for those conditions, and England had a seamer try them in the second Test of the summer.
Was this just fitness? Probably not.
It’s also the kind of bowler Robinson is. He is a new ball specialist in a way that say Brydon Carse isn’t. But that is who they had open the bowling for them in the last Ashes, while Ollie Robinson did content with his Golfluencer partner.
Ben Jones@benjonescricket
New ball wickets for England since start of Ashes:
Brydon Carse – 3 in 216 balls
Ollie Robinson – 3 in 6 balls
Ben Jones @benjonescricket
Reckon Ollie Robinson might have done alright with the new ball in Australia
4:50 PM · Jun 4, 2026 · 58.1K Views
9 Replies · 43 Reposts · 790 Likes
He’s not quite a ride or die new ball bowler, but there are elements of that. As often happens in England, his best period is when the lacquer comes off the ball. But after the 20 over mark, he can really struggle.
That is partly a skill thing, as his main offering is the wobbleball near the top of off. However, it is also because he slows down the longer he bowls. His second spells look laboured, his third are painful, and his fourth are often delivered like he’s blowing a shuttlecock.
In the 2023 Ashes, England decided to use him as a bouncer bowler on a weird Lord’s pitch. It was like watching the world’s toughest accountant fight Conor McGregor. It wasn’t that he had no ability to do it, but just why though?
And this is another issue England have with Robinson. They don’t just like bouncers, they love them. Brendon McCullum was the man who unleashed Neil Wagner on cricket. And so often their team plan is, “well nothing is working, so let’s spam bouncers”. Robinson really can’t do that.
England love fast, flat pitch, bouncer bowlers, and he is absolutely none of those.
It would be wrong to think he didn’t have any of the elements of what they wanted. He can be mouthy and strangely attacking for a bloke who bowls 80 mph deliveries. But they wanted people who would jump into burning buildings for wickets. And he was too tired to get out the ladder off the firetruck.
At least part of it is just that he is a pure English bowler from a long line of patient, metronomic trundlers who always don’t work that well overseas.
In June 2021, he also got in trouble for old racist and sexist tweets. Yet, those messages had little to do with his career pattern.
Clearly, his fitness and his personality was part of it, plus elements of him being new ball or bust. But he did have one other skill, and that was economy. The problem was that England did not care about that at all.
Robinson is one of the most defended bowlers in the world. He is always at the top of the stumps, and he rarely strays much. You can work him, but there are not that many balls to attack. So most players just defend.
That means he has an obscenely low economy rate for anyone, but specifically for an English bowler. Now recently, they’ve only picked guys who go at around four runs an over, so it’s not shocking he looks good. But he is well under three runs an over in an era where most bowlers are not. And this talent is the one England valued the least.
They could understand the new ball bowling. But their selections tell you they did not care at all about Robinson keeping the runs down. In the Ashes, this became an epidemic. They allowed a usually stoic Aussie batting lineup to score quicker than them. And at home, they had two of their most economical bowlers in Jimmy and Ollie (not) enjoying the show.
Is he a better bowler than before? Maybe. He has never done that well against left-handers traditionally. Yet that did not look like an issue today. And being that he’s been one of the best against right-handers ever, this would be quite the leap.
But he is not back in the side because of his bowling getting better, but because he has finally understood there is more to cricket than a perfect seam. Because for a long time he’s proved that he is nearly unmatched in that way.
Today does not tell us about his third spells, fitness or how hard the team thinks he tries. This was a pitch made for him, against an out of form line up, that he would be expected to destroy.
What he does on flat pitches, in the second innings when he’s already bowled 35 overs is his real test. Today was just what everyone knew he could do, just a little bit better.
For the longest time, England kept him out of the team, but that was because Ollie Robinson put himself in the wrong place.