England bowler Matthew Potts is ready to go back to his roots as a ‘workhorse’ after his Ashes disappointment in Sydney, admitting: “the cold, hard facts were I wasn’t good enough”.
The urn was already long gone when Potts finally got his chance in the fifth and final Test in January, and his two-month wait ended in chastening fashion.
The Durham quick was thrashed around the SCG in a poor opening spell, eventually sending down 25 wicketless overs at a painful cost of 141 runs. As Australia successfully chased down 160 in the second innings, he was overlooked entirely as captain Ben Stokes used two frontline seamers and three part-time spinners instead.
Speaking almost three months later, back on home turf at Chester-le-Street, Potts made no excuses as he offered a candid assessment of the moment his Ashes dreams went south.
“Sometimes on the big stage there’s nowhere to hide. I got dealt a few punches and I didn’t throw too many the other way,” he said.
“The cold, hard facts were I wasn’t good enough in the last Test. That wasn’t me. There’s a little period of reflection where you sum up your day’s work and look back at it. I just had three words: ‘that was bad’.
“I’d bowled incredibly well the entire trip and felt in a really good spot. Unfortunately, you have a blip at the wrong time and it comes out that way. It happens in life and in cricket, you’ve got to crack on. Learning the hard way relatively early in my Test career probably stands me in better stead moving forward.”
He does, though, contest the notion that Stokes pulled him from fray on the final day to spare him further damage.
“I think Ben knows I can take things on the chin,” he said.
“No one can be protected. It was just a tactical choice and that was completely fine with me.
“You come back the next day and it’s all about having the right mindset, attack the day as if yesterday never happened. You rock up with the same intent and same approach, grafting for the team rather than throwing the towel in.”
Potts is now hoping to earn the chance to put things right with his county performances, starting at home to Zak Crawley’s Kent on Friday.
And he is preparing a change of approach, prioritising the qualities that first brought him to England’s attention four years ago.
“If we look back at what I was in 2022, I was a workhorse who bowled a lot of overs but was adaptable,” he said.
“Now it is probably about going back to being a workhorse that doesn’t miss and has high skill.
“In the last couple of years I probably forgot the fact I am a high skill bowler and lost a bit of that trying different things and different ideas. I tried them, they probably haven’t worked for me and now it is time to strip back to the basics and be me.
“It is all about taking wickets and seeing what happens. Everything is on merit, nothing is given.”
