Will O’Rourke: The Surrey-born New Zealand pace bowler taking on England

His rise to play all three formats for New Zealand and the award of a first central contract in July means O’Rourke has had to put a sports science degree on the back-burner.

“I’m slowly chipping away,” he says. “I’ll hopefully get that done in the next couple of years.

“I had an assignment due when we were on tour in Asia, so I did knuckle down for a little bit. When that was done, it was all cricket.”

“All cricket” meant playing in all three matches of the win in India, arguably the greatest away series triumph by any team in history. Before that, New Zealand had not won a Test in India for 36 years.

“It was pretty surreal,” says O’Rourke. “You go over there hearing some of the nightmares of how past tours have gone and how tough it can be. We had a big chat as a team before we went over there, to say ‘why not us?’ It was really special.”

The meeting with England brings O’Rourke up against Gus Atkinson, another fast bowler who has made an impression in his first year as a Test cricketer.

Of all the bowlers in history with at least O’Rourke’s 26 wickets, only three can better his strike-rate of 36.6. Two of them, George Lohmann and Albert Trott, played in the 19th Century. The other is Atkinson.

“I’ve been lucky enough to pick up the spoils in a few of the Tests,” says O’Rourke.

“Guys like Tim Southee and Matt Henry are relentless in their lengths, not giving much away. I’m a bit more of a spray can, but it can make my good ball a bit more dangerous because you don’t know when it’s going to come.”

O’Rourke’s good ball will come. England need to be ready.