He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium pace bowler. He made his Test match debut against Australia in the fifth Ashes Test in 2013. He is one of only ten players in Test cricket history to have his name on both major honours boards at Lords, for scoring a century and taking five wickets in an innings in a Test on the ground. As a young player at Warwickshire Ashley Giles commented, "if you wanted to clone a young cricketer, it would be Woakes."