England’s Ashes rebuild moved to the next stage when they made Leicestershire’s 20-year-old seamer Josh Hull their latest hunch pick, selecting him to replace the injured Mark Wood in the squad for the Lord’s Test against Sri Lanka.
Hull, a 6ft 7ins left-arm seamer from Leicestershire, only turned 20 last week and has played just nine first-class matches but has been on England’s watchlist for more than a year. The right thigh injury sustained by Wood, which has ruled him out for the rest of the Sri Lanka series, affords the opportunity to give Hull experience of being around the Test squad.
Earlier this summer, in an interview with Telegraph Sport, Rob Key said he did not care “how many wickets” bowlers take in county cricket, he just wanted to see them “running in and how hard you are hitting the pitch and are you able to sustain pace”. Hull fits that perfectly because his bowling average in Division Two of the Championship this summer is 182.5 from three games.
Across his career he has 11 wickets for Leicestershire at an average of 84 but Key in April revealed he was a player they were keen on plucking out of county cricket because they had spotted something in his makeup and believe he could be part of the “battery” of fast bowlers they want to take to Australia next year.
England are desperate to find a left-arm fast bowler for the Ashes tour to offer a different angle and Hull sealed his Test call-up with five wickets on debut for the Lions against Sri Lanka earlier this month. Hull is not express pace – he bowls around 82-84mph – but England believe he can bowl quicker, from high 80s to 90mph, and with his bounce he may be a genuine threat at Test level.
This summer the separation between Test team and county cricket has become wider than ever. Hull, in a previous era, would not have a sniff of an England call-up. He would be left for several more years to mature and develop in county cricket. But England, under Key and Brendon McCullum, believe county cricket and Test cricket are so far apart now they require different skills – pace and bounce at Test level rather than 78-80mph swing and seam.
It started last winter when they picked Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley for the India tour despite barely any Championship success. This summer Bashir was picked ahead of Jack Leach, who keeps him out of the side at Somerset, Gus Atkinson has been a revelation with the new ball despite only bowling first or second change for Surrey, while Jamie Smith is keeping wicket despite being Ben Foakes’ understudy in the Championship.
England even considered picking Hull last summer for the one-day series against Ireland, showing how long he has been on their radar, but decided to give him more time to develop. He was taken out of the Hundred competition this summer to play for the England Lions against Sri Lanka – a sign of how close he was to Test selection – and nailed his Test call-up with five for 74, his best match figures. Hull, speaking to Telegraph Sport earlier this summer, pointed to Australia’s Mitchell Starc as a role model. A rugby player in his youth, Hull only turned to cricket seriously during the Covid lockdown.
Wood sustained a thigh strain in the first Test victory at Old Trafford, limping off after two balls of his 11th over in the second innings, with confirmation after a scan arriving on Sunday morning that he will not play a further part in the series. His summer is likely over now after two-and-a-bit Test matches, with the focus on getting him fit for the dead pitches of Pakistan in October, where he won England a Test match in Multan in 2022.
The injury is a reminder of the sheer physical toll that bowling 97mph takes out of Wood, who has a long history of injury problems, and how he can only ever be thrown at opponents sparingly.
Hull is not Wood’s pace and Olly Stone, who was in the squad for the Old Trafford Test, is likely to play at Lord’s. But if Hull impresses in the nets on Tuesday, you would not put it past this England set-up to throw him in.
It is a remarkable rise. Hull’s parents own a farm near Oundle, and during lockdown his father installed a cricket net in a disused barn to keep him and his brother Ollie, who is also on Leicestershire’s books, active. Being able to bowl all day at his brother quickened his progress. Hull attended Stamford School where former England bowler Dean Headley was his cricket coach. Headley recommended him to Phil Defreitas, then in charge of Leicestershire’s academy, and within a year of joining the club he was playing first-team cricket in the Metro Bank Cup.
The Hundred has forced counties to give experience to young players in the 50-over cup and Hull stood out, bowling the final over in Leicestershire’s victory over Hampshire in the 2023 final. He defended eight runs to secure Leicestershire’s first List A trophy since 1985, a sign of his maturity at a young age and level-headed temperament that England look for in young players. “I did not feel nervous,” he told this newspaper. “It was Hampshire’s game to win. I was more nervous watching back on telly the next day. In the moment I felt alright to be fair. I had a plan, tried to execute it and did it.”
He still needs to build up his physique for the rigours of red-ball cricket and work on his skills but has a good yorker and can swing the ball late. A side injury prevented him playing in the first month of the season and he struggled in his first two red-ball games of the summer in May when scores were high in the Championship. He found form in the Blast with 25 wickets at 24 and took that into the Lions game at Worcester, where he dismissed Angelo Mathews and Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva.
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