Follow UsPlaying his third Test of the series and his first since Edgbaston, where he conceded 212 runs at nearly 5 an over, tearaway quick Josh Tongue made quite the hideous start to the fifth Test at The Oval today.
Introduced into the attack in the 9th over, Tongue bowled the worst delivery of the series, a five wides so wide that it perfectly bisected both the wicketkeeper and leg-slip. Leg-slip, yes. He bowled another wide four balls later, and then followed it up with another five wides, this time in the other direction. 0/12 read Tongue’s figures after his first over, with a solitary run coming off the bat.
He would go on to bowl one more wide, and spray many more, which could easily have been wides.
His first 9 overs looked like THIS.
Yet it was a spell defined by the two white dots you see in the picture above. And it was a spell that told you why, despite how erratic he is, England are so keen on having Tongue in the XI.
Sai Sudharsan, on a green top, was batting like a dream, and two balls before he got out, Tongue had begun his new spell with an awry delivery down leg. It was one of those deliveries which made you audibly groan, ‘Oh no.'
Such a start would usually be an indicator of a bowler who is in pretty bad rhythm, but seconds after firing one miles down leg, Tongue bowled one of the balls of the series to end Sudharsan’s resistance.
From ‘round the wicket, he angled one into the batter, hit the good length, and made the ball seam away ever so slightly at the last moment. Sudharsan nicked it and, just like that, he was gone. England had the breakthrough they were looking for.
Tongue’s next over, his seventh, featured two more boundaries, with one of them being a result of a stray delivery down leg. One of those ‘hit-me’ balls that rightly got punished; a gift for the batter. He began his eighth with two more boundaries, four byes wide of the keeper and then a short and wide ball that was flayed over the slip cordon by Ravindra Jadeja, the man who’s denied England all series.
But seconds later, Jadeja was gone too. Once again, courtesy of a peach from Tongue who, just like Sudharsan, bamboozled another left-hander with an unplayable pearler.
13 overs, 12 wides, but two invaluable wickets. It was a day of Josh Tongue extremes at The Oval.