Surrey-born 'giraffe' O'Rourke ready to take on England

O'Rourke's association with England is much more fleeting than Stokes' to New Zealand. O'Rourke's father Paddy, himself a good enough bowler to play first-class cricket for Wellington, and mother Jess were working in the UK when Will and his brother Oliver were born.

"Mum and Dad, two Kiwis, were keen to raise us back in New Zealand," says O'Rourke. "I came back here when I was five, so I don't remember much of the UK. I was always a Kiwi and I always wanted to play for the Black Caps."

Like most young New Zealanders, O'Rourke played rugby union. A flanker or number eight, when he got taller he was stuck in the second row and lost his love of the game.

He did most of his growing up in Auckland and his cricket only accelerated after he moved to Christchurch to study at university.

At 19, he was handed a contract to play for Canterbury, where he was coached by Brendon Donkers. Limbs everywhere in his action, O'Rourke was described by Donkers as a "newborn giraffe".

"It's a pretty accurate summation of what it was when I first got down here," says O'Rourke. "If you see a tape of my action then, it was all over the place. It's definitely not picturesque now, but it's a lot better."

By his own admission, O'Rourke was not in the "greatest nick" physically and had "not seen the inside of a gym" until he joined Canterbury. Fitter and mentored by the even taller Jamieson, O'Rourke gained pace up to the mid-80s he is now.

Less than two years after his first-class debut in 2022, O'Rourke was playing Test cricket.

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.