The Athletic has launched a Cricket WhatsApp Channel. Click here to join.There cannot have been many better comebacks in Test history.It had been 28 months since Ollie Robinson last played for England. And yet a figure who appeared consigned to the past, amid issues with his fitness and attitude on a tour of India in 2024, returned with one of the great opening overs to turn the first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s on its head.Graham Gooch once asked Ian Botham who wrote his scripts after he took a wicket — also against New Zealand, in 1986 — with his first ball back having served a ban after admitting smoking marijuana. But it would have taken the most imaginative fiction specialist to come up with a plot that saw Robinson take three wickets in his first over without conceding a run after England’s reset following the horrors of the Ashes had started in the worst possible way.When Ben Stokes’ side were skittled out for 140 by a New Zealand attack shorn of Matt Henry, who succumbed to back spasms in the first hour, the pressure was already starting to build on a ‘Bazball’ regime in desperate need of a winning start to the summer.No matter that New Zealand — in the form of the extra pace, bounce and menace of Will O’Rourke, the potent swing of Nathan Smith and the best of the bunch in Kyle Jamieson, who took five wickets in a sublime display — had more than enough with only three bowlers. Conditions were perfect for seam and swing bowling, with the Lord’s pitch offering all sorts of assistance to make batting the most hazardous of exercises after New Zealand had won a crucial toss.There will be no honeymoon period for an England side who stuck with the captain, coach and managing director responsible for one of the most disappointing Ashes thrashings of all despite the disillusionment of their fanbase.Few allowances will be made for the quality of this New Zealand side, either. England simply have to win this three-match series, and follow it up with victory against Pakistan later this summer, to stop questions being asked again of Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key as the clock ticks towards another meeting with Australia next summer.Ollie Robinson is mobbed by his delighted England team-mates after making the breakthrough (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)So Robinson’s four wickets and an England bowling performance that saw New Zealand briefly reeling at 29-6 — they reached 61-6 by the close of a rain-interrupted first day — were crucial to the health of a side who, to use one of McCullum’s favoured boxing analogies, had been “on the ropes”.This is the 150th Test at the most famous cricket ground in the world but even Lord’s has rarely seen anything quite like Robinson’s opening over — the second of New Zealand’s reply after Gus Atkinson had conceded two runs from the first. “Don’t write England off yet — conditions are made for Robinson,” said the sage sitting next to The Athletic in the Lord’s media centre, a former England player of some repute, in the break between innings. How pertinent that turned out to be.With the floodlights on, the first ball from the new Sussex captain, bowled at the 80 miles per hour mark at which he operates when at his best, was on off stump and defended tentatively by Devon Conway. After the second, defended by Conway into his pads off an inside edge, England captain Stokes called for a helmet from the dressing room and debutant Emilio Gay, earlier the first of Jamieson’s victims, was placed at short leg.The third delivery gave England lift-off as Conway played all round the ball after coming down the pitch to try to negate movement and was struck on the pad. Umpire Rod Tucker’s raised finger was just about backed up by technology with the ball clipping leg stump.Ollie Robinson appeals for leg before wicket against Devon Conway (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)The great Kane Williamson, playing in what will almost certainly be his last Lord’s Test, just about missed a beauty of a fourth ball that held its line instead of angling. Joe Root led the slip cordon in raising their arms in excitement and disbelief at the near miss. Yet the wicket soon came regardless. Williamson tried to defend the fifth delivery and only succeeded in turning the ball into his pads.He watched it balloon up agonisingly for Gay, diving forward, to snaffle.Emilio Gay dives forward to pouch the chance offered up by Kane Williamson second ball (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)Cue pandemonium when Rachin Ravindra, who had dropped a dolly of a catch on the boundary when Harry Brook had scored 45 of his 56, was caught in his crease by a length ball that landed on off stump but came down the Lord’s slope into the pads of the left-hander.It was close again but Tucker, standing in his 100th Test, again saw his decision just about upheld on review.Rachin Ravindra considers his review as England celebrate (David Rogers/Getty Images)The umpires almost took the players off for bad light before the hat-trick ball at the start of Robinson’s second over — that really would have been a classic ‘cricket does not help itself’ moment — but play continued and the ball passed harmlessly outside Tom Latham’s off stump.No matter. The damage had been done and more of it was inflicted when Robinson later bowled Daryl Mitchell shouldering arms. He ended the day with 4-10 from his six overs.What a performance, and what vindication of the controversial decision to bring Robinson back, at 32, for this Test after his long absence when even his coaches at Hove had expressed reservations in a the Farby and Friends club podcast that his recall may have come slightly too soon.Daryl Mitchell shoulders arms and is bowled by Ollie Robinson (David Rogers/Getty Images)But Robinson’s almost old-fashioned attributes of skill, accuracy and extra bounce from his 6ft 5in frame have never been in doubt. His Test record was outstanding, with 76 wickets at only 22.9 before this match (he now has 80 at 21.9). Once England had been convinced of his fitness and maturity his selection was something of a no-brainer.It is not hyperbole to say that, at his best, Robinson remains one of the best bowlers in the world.“I can’t really put it into words right now — it feels a bit surreal,” Robinson told Sky Sports straight after this dramatic first day of the international summer. “I couldn’t have dreamt it. It’s been an amazing couple of hours out there and it’s so good to be back.”Robinson put his success down to the modern preference among fast bowlers for wobble-seam deliveries rather than conventional seam and swing bowling.“I was just trying to wobble it and hit that full length,” he said. “The pitch is reacting better when you try and wobble the ball. It was just one of those days. My day. The decisions were given too; two umpire’s calls which sometimes don’t go with you. It was so special to get those wickets and put the team in a good position.”Ollie Robinson’s remarkable bowling figures after his first over – a triple-wicket maiden (David Rogers/Getty Images)It is tempting to wonder now if Robinson could have made a difference in Australia where the pitches, unusually, were also made for bowlers of his type rather than the ones with extra pace with whom the tourists filled their squad. As England great Stuart Broad put it during commentary on Sky: “If England were going to pick him for this match, it’s a surprise they didn’t pick him for the Ashes.”It was while England were being dismantled in the Ashes that Robinson, who spent part of the winter playing grade cricket in Australia, felt his days at the highest level were numbered.“There were obviously doubts,” he said. “I thought around Christmas time I was never going to play for England again. So to get back out there and get support from everyone was amazing and special.”Against all the odds, England were on top by the end of a dramatic day — still 79 runs to the good — and a bowler who was a pariah not too long ago had put them there. While writing his own highly improbable script.