By Richard Edwards
Liam Plunkett is taking a giant leap into the unknown as he heads to the UAE for the first global T10 tournament this week – but by the time the one-day leg of the Australia tour rolls around he’ll be back in very familiar territory.
The Yorkshire pace bowler was just 21 when he played in his first one-day series Down Under in the winter of 2006.
Then, as now, the Test series hadn’t gone exactly to plan but Plunkett – then with Durham – bowled with pace and skill to take 12 wickets as England stormed to victory in the CB Series.
It was quite some entrance. A mystery then, that he would play just five more ODIs before March 2010. His next trip to Australia with England would involve a 12,000-mile mercy dash from the Caribbean, where he was playing with the Lions, to play a solitary match against the Aussies in Perth. He scored 20 with the bat and took 2-49 with the Kookaburra ball before being discarded again, this time for four years.
Still only 32, it’s little wonder that Plunkett looks back on his England career with something approaching puzzlement, particularly as he’s now viewed as the spearhead of his country’s attack in 50 over cricket.
He admits that by the time the white ball cricket starts, supporters back home – and indeed the travelling masses of the Barmy Army – may be in need of a pick-me-up. And the reality is that England’s one-day side is currently far more likely to provide it than its five-day equivalent.
“I’m looking forward to it, I haven’t played in Aussie for a while but it’s one of the best places in the world to play cricket,” he tells The Cricket Paper. “The one-day series will be a different group of guys, it won’t be the same team. Sometimes, back in the day, the one-day team would be the same side as the team competing for the Ashes but that’s not going to be the case here.
“Hopefully England can fight back in the last two Tests but we’re a different group of boys and we’ll be pumped to play some good cricket.”
That would make a change from being thumped, which has been the story of England’s winter so far. In almost every sense.
England’s series win Down Under in 2006/07 remains one of the most remarkable victories in the country’s one-day history – even matching the twin ODI successes celebrated during the 1986/87 tour.
It even came as something of a shock to Plunkett, who had been watching England battle for the Ashes on the television back home before heading Down Under for an experience he has never forgotten.“It was massively unexpected,” he says. “After being beat 5-0 (in the Test series) I was just told to go and express myself and that’s exactly what I did. Cricket-wise, I had been watching the Ashes since I was kid and then suddenly here I was playing against some of my heroes.
“You’re bowling and half expected to get carted everywhere. Instead you’re getting them out. It’s something that has stayed with me. That was a really good Aussie team, pretty much everyone was playing for them. It was a hugely enjoyable experience.”
That word is now something that Plunkett possesses in spades, with his know-how proving invaluable for a young England side that has played some exceptional cricket under Eoin Morgan since being humbled in the World Cup in Australia in 2015.
Plunkett came into the side just months after an ignominious campaign which summed up England’s place in the global one-day game at the time.
Now, three years on, he boasts 96 ODI wickets at a cost of just 30 and has consistently been on the money for his country both at home and abroad.
There were many, including former England captain Michael Vaughan who believed that Plunkett had shown enough to put his name back into the hat for a Test recall when Steven Finn flew home with an injury back in October. That call never came.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed because I still believe I can play Test cricket,” he says. “I still think I can go out there and take five wickets every time I bowl. That will never change.”
