Leaner, stronger, fitter Stone ready for a year of challenges

Olly Stone's Warwickshire teammates were naturally delighted for him when he was called up to England's squad for the tour to Sri Lanka in 2018. It was reward for all the effort Stone had put into returning from a significant knee injury the year before. But in hindsight, some of his county colleagues may now be regretting the lessons Stone learnt on that tour to Sri Lanka. It has made their cricketing lives significantly more difficult.

The intensity of England's training sessions surprised Stone. They were a step up from what he had experienced at domestic level. "You're bowling at what I would call my match pace at every training session whereas in county cricket, at times you don't do that," he tells Cricbuzz. Stone realised he needed to crank it up more often in the nets at Warwickshire to replicate the same intensity. As a result, the club's batsmen have regularly been on the receiving end of his 90mph thunderbolts in training ever since.

Stone's pace is his point of difference. He is one of the three genuine fast bowlers that England have identified for their Test side with Mark Wood and Jofra Archer the other two. Their job is to provide the attack with aggression and make life uncomfortable for the batsmen, particularly on pitches that do not offer much sideways movement. Stone may be mild-mannered off the pitch, but when he is on it, he fits the bill perfectly. He is an outwardly aggressive, always-at-the-batsmen type of bowler, unafraid to have a word or two if necessary.

"I've never thought about it too much but it's the competitive nature of me coming out," he says. "I don't like losing. I love winning and I'll do anything to win. Maybe that's where that side of it comes out in me, especially when I've got ball in hand. You have to get up for a battle. If you are not up for it, your heart is not really in it. It is an important part for me to be able to run in and do the job I want to do."

After an ODI debut in Sri Lanka, Stone played his first Test in 2019 at Lord's against Ireland but then suffered a reoccurrence of a stress fracture of the back. It ruled him out of action for the rest of that season and a potential Ashes bow. Last summer, a side strain frustratingly curtailed his season. In all, Stone had to wait 18 months from that Ireland game to make his next England appearance. It finally came against India in the second Test in Chennai in February.

It might be a stretch to say it was a make-or-break game. Stone is only 27 but a horrendous run of injuries had limited him to just 38 first-class matches in eight-and-a-half years. Sooner or later, he had to prove to England's coaches and, he freely admits, to himself, that he could get on the pitch and then compete at Test level. A strong performance in Chennai certainly demonstrated that.

Stone was the pick of England's bowlers on an opening day in Chennai which otherwise didn't go to plan as Rohit Sharma single-handedly took the game away from them. Stone took three first-innings wickets, including pinning Shubman Gill LBW with his third ball, and generally impressed with his pace, stamina and accuracy. It was striking that he was able to return late on the first day and still bowl over 140kph. It was a display that showed why England had kept faith with him for so long.

It also instilled in him the belief that he has what it takes. "I always thought I could do it," Stone says. "I guess until you actually go out there and show that you can do it and prove to yourself that you can, you always, not worry, but have a little bit of doubt in your mind. Can you actually? So to go out there and perform the way I did was really pleasing."

Although he only played one Test out of the six that England played in Sri Lanka and India, Stone says he learnt a lot from the tour. In particular, bowling to Rohit and Virat Kohli in Chennai showed him the value of accuracy on pitches that don't offer as much as those at home. "The pitches being the way they are, not as conducive for seamers, was a big learning curve for me with how on the money you have to be at that top level for every ball," Stone says.

"Sometimes in England, you get away with it because the ball does a bit more so batsmen play and miss at the odd one. Whereas over there, it sits up and the batsmen have a lot of time. It was a big learning curve in terms of my skill and trying to be as accurate as I can, but still have that pace as well." Training day in and day out with James Anderson and Stuart Broad taught him various ways to hold the seam to get the ball to react differently off the surface while getting through the whole trip without injury was an important confidence booster too.

"That's the pleasing thing," Stone says. "I always thought I could do it and then for some reason, something would happen and I would breakdown again. To get through a prolonged period of cricket at high intensity was a big tick in the right direction for me going forward. It was a very pleasing winter and hopefully I can keep building on it this summer. The nature of fast bowling is you are going to pick up injuries and little niggles. But hopefully, the fact I'm a bit fitter and stronger now means that they won't happen as often."

In the last couple of years, Stone has made a number of changes to how he trains and his nutrition in order to get leaner, stronger and fitter. That Sri Lanka tour was the catalyst. To train harder, and to reduce the risk of injury, he realised he needed to be fitter. "I was never unfit but putting those extra yards in, working hard on my fitness, I can see how much of a difference that has made to keep bowling consistently in and around 90mph which is what I want to do," he says.

"Having sat down with the nutritionist, I probably thought I was doing the right things in terms of how much I was eating. But realistically, I wasn't. Up until that point, I never really knew the importance of it. Along with nutrition, getting fitter with running. I've never done as much running as I do now but it just keeps you ticking over and keeps you in a good place." Stone's coaches at Warwickshire have been impressed with how diligently he has taken to this new regime.

Archer's elbow injury looks likely to rule him out for most of the summer which should mean Stone gets more opportunities to impress, perhaps starting in the two-Test series against New Zealand starting on Wednesday at Lord's (June 2). He has been pleased with the way the ball has been coming out in the early rounds of the Championship for Warwickshire and hopes he will get the nod for the first Test.

Then of course there is the Ashes later this year, a tour for which Stone's pace and height looks ideally suited. "Obviously, that's something I'd love to be involved in," he says. "I've heard so many good things about going down under and playing that series. That is the end goal but the short-term is being involved in these New Zealand Tests and then hopefully the India series as well. Hopefully, put my name forward for that trip to Australia. I'd like to try not to think about it too much, but I guess it you always do have that little thought about it. I'd be silly to say it's not on my mind."