As anyone involved with English cricket will tell you – players capable of bowling 92mph rockets don’t grow on trees.
It’s why Mark Wood is viewed as something of a sporting unicorn.
Sonny Baker might never hit the kind of speeds that Wood is capable of, not many in the history of the sport have.
But he’s plenty quick enough.
His rise to the England Test side could be similarly rapid if Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes chose to start their Ashes preparation with the 23-year-old in their side.
Baker is in line to make his Test debut this summer (Photo: Getty)What’s remarkable, though, isn’t the pace Baker has bowled this season in a struggling Hampshire side – but the fact he has battled back from multiple stress fractures and found a way when countless others would have thrown in the towel.
“My history with Sonny dates back to our Somerset days,” says Shane Burger, now bowling coach at Hampshire.
“I was the batting coach then so would have worked with him on a different level but he was very raw and dealing with a serious back injury.
“He wasn’t playing. It was all a bit doom and gloom, there were times, I’m sure, when he wasn’t even sure if he would bowl again.”
Baker has suffered three stress fractures in his career, and has arrived at England’s door having not been picked up by a county until his late teens, when Somerset took a chance on him.
Baker’s England debut did not go to plan – and he is yet to take an international wicket (Photo: Getty)It’s a path less travelled in modern cricket.
But Baker has been busy making up for lost time ever since.
He hit 91.5mph in Hampshire’s win over Yorkshire at Headingley back in April. He also celebrated a triple wicket maiden in the same match.
It’s his ability to take wickets in batches, allied to consistently hitting speeds in the high 80s, that have so far set him apart in 2026.
“He identifies moments in the game,” says Burger.
“He’s someone who can run through the tail as well. He’s a bowler who has these incredible points of difference.
“Umpires have the iHawk tool this summer and one of the metrics it gives you is ball speed. He has been hitting 85 to 88mph in most of his spells and getting it up to 89 and 90 as well. In England, it’s probably only him, Josh Tongue, Gus Atkinson that are capable of hitting those speeds.
60 secs with SONNY BAKER pic.twitter.com/htYLIiHD7H
— Hampshire Hawks (@hantscricket) February 11, 2026“Can he get up to Mark Wood’s speeds? I think it’s an incredibly tough question. There aren’t any who can do that. I think 85 to 90 is the sweet spot for him. He might go faster in white-ball cricket – he can rev it up when it needs to.
“But that 95-96mph is an incredibly tough ball speed to manage. Not many have done that.”
Stress fractures are very much the bane of the English fast bowler.
John Turner, Baker’s Hampshire team-mate and a man who also has England white-ball caps to his name, is currently working his way back from the injury, almost 12 months after an initial diagnosis.
Harry Moore, another highly-rated young bowler at Derbyshire, is also set to miss the whole of this season after being absent for a large chunk of 2025 too.
It’s worth remembering that Aussie captain Pat Cummins spent six years on the sidelines between 2011 and 2017, with a similar range of injuries.
Baker, and England, will hope for a clean bill of health from here on in.
And Hampshire have certainly reaped the rewards of a fit and firing Baker so far this season.
Baker has already been prolific for Hampshire in Division One this year (Photo: Getty)He has taken 19 wickets at a cost of 21 in five County Championship matches so far but it’s not so much the scalps, as the quality of his performances.
“He’s always had a lot of skill – now he’s sort of combined that skill with pace and accuracy as well,” says Giles White, Hampshire’s director of cricket.
“Sonny throws himself into everything. He’s an all in sort of cricketer, a great guy to have in the team.
“You know, you’re going to get 100 per cent every time he sets foot on the field.
“I’m not sure how much we can see of him now, because of his selection for England – that’s fantastic for him and the club, but it does take a premier bowler out of the equation for us.”
Hampshire’s loss is very much England’s gain, and if he is handed a chance against the Kiwis at Lord’s, he’ll hope his Test bow goes better than his white-ball debut – seven chastening overs against South Africa that disappeared for 76 runs last September at Headingley.
He partially banished that ghost with his performance against Yorkshire at the same ground last month.
Having openly wondered whether he would ever play professionally, let alone Test cricket, the last six years have already been a whirlwind for the man from Torquay.
Now he’s riding the crest of a wave – and at breakneck speed.
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