Olly Stone burnishes his England credentials with four-wicket haul against Essex

Warwickshire (7-0) trail Essex (295) by 288 runs

If merit is going to be the new criterion for England’s reshaped selection panel - apart from injuries and absences in the IPL - their pace attack for the first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s will consist of James Anderson and Ollie Robinson, taking the new ball, backed up by Olly Stone.

It is one of the mysteries of England’s last Test series in India that Stone was selected for only one game. He did not reverse-swing the ball once it was 20 overs old as James Anderson did, but otherwise Stone was the liveliest of all the pace bowlers in the series, Indian or English. Yet Stuart Broad played two Tests, without taking a wicket, to Stone’s single Test, his second in all, following his debut against Ireland.

Since last winter Stone has kicked on as a cricketer. In Warwickshire’s last game he played a serious innings in partnership with Tim Bresnan that enabled his county to beat Nottinghamshire. England, especially with their unestablished top order, need fast bowlers who can bat - not simply hit like old-timers.

In this third-round game, under a flawless Birmingham sky, and on a pitch almost as unblemished, Stone took four wickets against the county champions Essex. In that he swings the new ball, Stone offers a different package to Mark Wood, who specialises more in the old one, but they are similar in having express speed. Stone runs up quicker than Wood and follows through further.

Stone deserved a fifth wicket. Nick Browne’s leg stump looked certain to be going for a walk back to the Essex dressing-room at the City End when Stone swung a new-ball yorker back into the left-hander. If the umpire Alex Wharf was wrong, it was an expensive mistake because Browne was not out until after tea for 68, when he fended - rather than defended - at Stone.

Stone’s most spectacular wicket came when he bounced out Paul Walter, Essex’s very tall left-hander. In Stone’s previous over Walter had ducked into a shortish ball, and his reaction was to fend a bouncer to fly-slip, cleverly placed for the purpose.

Dan Lawrence whipped Stone’s first bad ball, a leg-stump half-volley, to forward square-leg - it was not the soundest of starts by Lawrence as he had already missed whipping a ball outside off-stump - while Stone took his fourth wicket with the second ball. If he was expensive, he was given several overs too many, and it was rather naive to bowl bouncers from the city end with a leg-side boundary of about 60 yards.

The day’s other highlight was much briefer: an hour of Sir Alastair Cook at his most felicitous. After a ropey start to this season, he drove two fours through extra-cover in the third over, and was soon driving more boundaries straight and through mid-on, areas which he never explored in his Test career, when he wore a hair shirt not an Essex top.

Cook could barely tear himself away when he edged a good ball from Craig Miles operating round the wicket, as so few pace bowlers did in the first half of his Test career. He had made 46 from 47 balls, on a belter, and even at this veteran stage he would probably have preferred to score a scratchy 47 in a day.

One lowlight too. On another gorgeous spring day, the wind ever less chilly, this Test ground of 28,000 capacity contained no spectators, while tens of thousands have milled round the city centre of an evening.