Geoff Miller, the former England all-rounder and national selector, tells a humorous story on the after-dinner circuit about a young Devon Malcolm’s first appearance at Derbyshire practice. Keen to make an impression, Malcolm’s first ball was a vicious bouncer that whistled past the batsman’s nose. The only problem was that the batsman was standing in the net next to the one in which Malcolm was bowling.
Yes, Malcolm was wayward, but he was quick and at times devastatingly destructive in the right places, as he showed here at the Oval when enjoying his finest moment in Test cricket, taking nine for 57 against South Africa in 1994. “You guys are history” and all that.
Tongue, in his third Test of the series, struggled to find his rhythm at the Oval — leading to ironic cheers from the crowd when he did trouble a batsman
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That story immediately came to mind when Josh Tongue bowled his first ball in this Test, one so wide down the leg side to KL Rahul that it sent wicketkeeper and leg slip scurrying more for cover than any real attempt to stop the out-of-control delivery. That was five wides and there was another set of them in the same over, as well as another wide that Jamie Smith did at least manage to get to behind the stumps. Tongue was all over the place, so much so that the first ball that was anywhere near the batsman was greeted with ironic cheers from the crowd. Never a good sign.
There was a suspicion that Tongue could not land securely enough on the damp surface, but sawdust was summoned and boots with longer studs requisitioned, and it did not seem to affect the radar a great deal. This was one of those days.
Malcolm, centre, enjoyed his best-ever Test bowling figures at the Oval in 1994
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Another tale that was easily recalled was that of Gregory Armstrong, the West Indian who was once an overseas player at Glamorgan, chosen by a scouting committee member ahead of someone called Michael Holding. Armstrong was soon revealing a penchant for inconsistency in length and line. There had been a drain installed at the Sophia Gardens ground in Cardiff that ran across the square, and the joke was that Armstrong could hit it regularly when bowling from either end.
We should, of course, be careful of making too much fun of such loss of accuracy because there have been some cases, like that of Leicestershire’s Scott Boswell bowling a 14-ball over in the 2001 C&G Trophy final at Lord’s, from which there was no recovery and some difficult mental issues to confront.
But I do so here because Tongue was smiling eventually as he took two wickets, of the left-handers Sai Sudharsan and Ravindra Jadeja, with absolute beauties that were angled in and then left the batsmen with bounce. Those two were unfortunate, providing evidence of how tricky it can be to face a bowler who is thoroughly unsure where they are going to land the ball.
Despite his initial struggles, Tongue was smiling late in the day after he finally grabbed a couple of wickets
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I remember a Sunday League match against Somerset at Taunton when Jason Kerr, now the county’s head coach, was struggling with the white Dukes balls that swung lavishly. He bowled a first over that was full of wides and anxiety, before bowling me from the last ball for a duck with a booming inswinger. “It is the worst thing,” Ravi Shastri said on Sky Sports, of the difficulties of facing such bowling, simply because concentration and focus are so elusive. It is just not what you expect at the top level. You yearn for consistency and rhythm in your own movements and they prove impossible when balls are flying wildly down the leg side and elsewhere.
But if we are expecting metronomic consistency from Tongue, we are probably asking the wrong questions. He is just not that type of bowler. His potency comes from his point of difference, from a bowling arm that goes beyond the perpendicular, creating awkward angles to add to his pace and bounce.
He does not operate in straight lines, with his arms crossing over. He runs in with elbows high as if he has been doing too many upright rows in the gym, and he falls away in his action to create that awkward angle of delivery and some movement. And, like Malcolm was, he is quick. Immediately after his first wicket he was up near 90mph, but he is also inaccurate, as shown when his last ball of the day was the filthiest of full tosses to Karun Nair.
The dismissal of Jadeja summed up his day. The first ball of that over went for four byes, an extraordinarily harsh call on the wicketkeeper Smith, who had no chance of stopping it, and the second ball was upper cut for a one-bounce four to third man. And then the third ball was unplayable. As a batsman you would be bewildered and bristling.
Gus Atkinson was England’s best bowler, finishing the day with figures of two for 31
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Tongue is certainly a Bazball bowler, one hunting for wickets (particularly the “rabbit-pie” served up by the tail), rather than the sort of control and pressure with which many teams seek to take wickets. Think of him as the bowling equivalent to Zak Crawley; more about the impact than the consistency.
But Tongue will know that he can be so much better than this, and he will need to be if Chris Woakes is out of the Test and England are a bowler down. This is a bowlers’ pitch and England, the impressive Gus Atkinson aside, have not bowled well.