LONDON: Brydon Carse is among three England pacers, who have played all four Test matches against India so far. With 155 overs under his belt, the 29-year-old allrounder is second on the list of the bowlers with most overs in the five-match series behind his teammate Chris Woakes. Apart from him, England captain Ben Stokes and speedster Woakes have played all the matches.
With Stokes clearly saying likelihood of him not playing the next match is very unlikely, chances are there either Carse, who went wicketless in the Manchester Test, or Woakes can be rested for the fourth Test starting at the Oval on Thursday. Carse, the 29-year-old bowling-allrounder might not be in top three of the leading wicket takers or scored plenty of runs in the series but he was bowler who gave England the wickets they were looking for at the crucial junctures.
Be it the first Test at Leeds, where he castled centurion KL Rahul in India's second innings triggering a collapse or the short burst that fetched two important wickets in the dying minutes at the Lord's that eventually prevented India from chasing down a small but tricky target. "Brydon’s main qualities were athleticism and competitiveness," John Windows, one of Carse's first coaches at the Durham Academy, told this daily. Speaking on Carse's initial days with the academy, he said, "Brydon joined us as a 17-year-old after a season playing for Burnmoor Cricket Club that summer. He was always a whole hearted trier. He worked extremely hard in his U19 year to turn himself into a top athlete and has never looked back."
Born in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in Gqeberha, Carse started playing cricket, hockey and rugby. He also accompanied his father James to the cricket field and watched him play numerous games and got hooked to the game. James, in turn, was captained at Northamptonshire by Geoff Cook in the 1980s.
Given his son's ambition to play cricket, James called Cook, a former England player and Durham coach, and that led to Carse playing his first summer of cricket for Burnmoor in 2014. After playing one more season there, he signed for Durham Academy and made his first class debut in 2016. He then qualified for England U19 in 2019 by virtue of his dad's British passport. "At academy level he batted in the middle order and scored runs consistently. He always had the potential to bowl fast but was hampered by injuries. His professionalism and drive eventually saw him past that tough stage (when he was banned for betting on cricket) and now we are seeing what he was always capable of," added Windows.
With Carse playing against India, the coach remembered an incident when he along with academy boys visited Bengaluru in 2016. "He visited Bengaluru on an academy tour in 2016 and caught the eye of Stuart Binny, former India all-rounder, who wanted to bat against him in the nets at Chinnaswamy Stadium. Binny was having a net session after our training and he apparently was impressed with Carse's competitiveness," said the coach.
Carse made his Test debut against Pakistan in Multan in October last year but caught the attention next month when he picked up a 10-wicket haul against New Zealand in Christchurch. Despite him picking up crucial wickets, he has not hit his top form in the ongoing series so far. He, however, played a useful knock of 56 runs adding 84 runs for the eighth wicket with wicketkeeper-batter Jamie Smith helping England level India's first innings score of 387 runs at Lord's.
With England bringing in Jamie Overton for the Oval Test and pace bowlers Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue already in the squad, there is a high chance of Carse getting rested. If it happens, Carse may not be disappointed as the series has taught him a lot ahead of the all-important Ashes beginning in the next few months.
