The Ashes 2017: As Ben Foakes prepares for 10 weeks as second-choice, spare a thought for the accidental tourist

“People think touring’s a very glamorous thing,” the former England fast bowler Mike Hendrick once said. “They don’t see how tough it can be for players if they’re not playing. It’s bloody hard work. You get homesick. I wasn’t a great photographer, and I wasn’t a great sightseer. Most of the time, what we saw was airports, hotels, cricket grounds, governor-generals’ front rooms, and plenty of bars.”

Spare a thought, then, for the accidental tourist. For every 11 players out there on the field, there are at least five more kicking their heels on the balcony, carrying the drinks, giving throw-downs and generally enjoying far more spare time than they bargained for. Some, ultimately, never get their chance. Hendrick was one of those, criss-crossing the Caribbean in 1973-74 yet not featuring in any of the five Tests. The likelihood is that Ben Foakes, the talented wicket-keeper batsman from Surrey, will be another.

Reserve keepers are traditionally the most expendable of tourists, closely followed by reserve spinners. And as England make landfall in Australia ahead of this winter’s Ashes series, most fans will be quietly contented if Foakes ends the tour as a pub quiz question. Because if he does feature, it either means that something has gone catastrophically wrong in the batting line-up, or that something unspeakable has happened to their first-choice, Jonny Bairstow.

Foakes himself is under no illusions as to the nature of his assignment. “Obviously Jonny is world-class,” he says. “I can’t go out there expecting to replace him. Everything I’m focused on is playing that first match, but if it doesn’t happen, then there are four more matches where I may be called upon. I just need to be focused so that if at any point the team needs me, I am ready.”

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Foakes, a 24-year-old from Colchester who has seen off competition from the likes of Jos Buttler and Sam Billings for a seat on the plane, making the squad is its own small triumph. It comes off the back of a sensational few seasons in red-ball cricket for Surrey, where regular watchers gush about his supple, tidy glove-work. Alec Stewart, his director of cricket, describes him as the “best wicket-keeper in the world”.

“I saw that on Facebook,” Foakes smiles. “Obviously I had a few Indian fans jibing, bringing up MS Dhoni.”

In a post-Gilchrist age, the idea of being a pure gloveman can be as much of a hindrance as a help to a Test career. But Foakes is a more than capable batsman in his own right, having made huge strides at Surrey under the tutelage of Kumar Sangakkara, who Foakes describes as a strong influence. An average of 48 in his last three seasons suggests he is a better bet than Chris Read or James Foster when they first broke into the England side.

Still, it took a while for Foakes to get to grips with his new status after receiving the call last month. “It has taken a couple of weeks to sink in,” he said. When did it finally hit him? “When we had a Loughborough camp last week – up until then, I couldn’t really process it. But when we got together as a squad, being with Jimmy and Broady and everyone, that’s when it hit.”

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The life of a non-playing tourist is its own test of character. Mike Brearley remembers falling out of favour during a tour of South Africa in 1964-65. “I got very bored with having to watch the cricket all the time and having no role,” he recalled in Stephen Chalke’s biography of Tom Cartwright. “I fooled around, stayed out too much, went to parties. And I played worse and worse.” More recently, the Ashes nightmare of Steven Finn four years ago offers its own grisly warning. Foakes knows that if he is to spend most of the tour on the sidelines, he will need to spend his time wisely.

“Everyone has to try and help each other along,” he says. “Ten weeks is a long time to be away, so there are going to be times when we all need to help each other. I’m not a big extrovert, I am better in one-on-one chats rather than being the joker of the pack.”

Someone notices a tattoo on Foakes’s wrist: the numbers 18.09.06. It commemorates the date when his life changed forever. His father Peter was a well-known football referee who officiated in the first couple of Premier League seasons before retiring from football and continuing to work as a teacher. On 18 September 2006, at the age of 60, he died suddenly. His son Ben was just 13 years old.

“He took me to cricket, he got me into the sport,” Foakes explains. “He took me to training, and obviously it was a massive hit when he died. It took me a few years to deal with. He had a heart attack, no warning at all. It was quite difficult.”

On the field and off it, Foakes seems mature beyond his years. This is not his first time in Australia: he played in the under-19 World Cup there in 2012, as well as some grade cricket in Adelaide and a couple of Lions tours. The bouncier wickets offer a different challenge to a keeper, but he insisted his technique would not be radically different. “You don’t have to deal with the wobble as much, which is great,” he says. “But generally it doesn’t change too much.”