Josh Tongue has been parachuted straight into the England team for the first Test of the summer against Ireland on Thursday, with the Worcestershire seamer set to make his debut after edging Mark Wood and Chris Woakes out of the side.
England’s head coach, Brendon McCullum, described Tongue as “a big strong lad” who “bowls quite fast and has some real skills” after watching him in action during the team’s first training session of the summer on Monday.
After their second, McCullum broke the news to Tongue that he would play against Ireland. “I bowled at some of the lads on Monday,” Tongue said. “I felt like I bowled nicely and obviously I was going in with no expectations to be playing at all, and just bowling at high-class players in the nets was good for me.
I must have bowled fairly well to get selected. “Baz came up to me just before training finished [on Tuesday] and gave me the good news.