Six foot four and after an impressive series against Sri Lanka, India will have to be wary of Will O’Rourke.
Unlike Kyle Jamieson, Will O’Rourke has shown no indication of being proficient with the bat. But there is still something very Jamieson about him.
At six foot four, O’Rourke is tall (though he doesn’t match Jamieson’s six-foot-eight frame), and he utilises his height well to hit the deck hard and extract bounce. After four Tests, O’Rourke has taken 19 wickets, the fourth-most for New Zealand at that point of the career. At third place with 20 wickets is... Jamieson.
Both men play for Canterbury and when O’Rourke made his Test debut earlier this year, it was after Jamieson got injured. A like-for-like replacement.
At Canterbury, O’Rourke had – like most tall fast bowlers – focused on hitting the deck. The first two seasons, 2021/22 and 2022/23, yielded 36 wickets, but at 31.22. What was going wrong?
“I think when he first started playing first-class cricket for Canterbury, he probably bowled too short and he beat the bat a lot, but didn't necessarily take a lot of wickets because he wasn't always threatening the stumps,” Canterbury head coach Peter Fulton (another tall man!) told ESPNcricinfo.
It was sorted out. Yes, the extra bounce was a weapon, but O’Rourke needed a full arsenal. He was obviously on international radar – he had already played for New Zealand in the 2020 Under-19 World Cup – but once his pace went up and he altered his length, the wickets came.
In 2023, he played two “Tests” for New Zealand A in Australia A, claiming nine wickets at 22.40 apiece. Later that year, he played in the home ODIs against Bangladesh, and finished the 2023/24 first-class season with 20 wickets at 17.80.
This included a phenomenal Test debut where he claimed 4-59 and 5-34. The match figures, 9-93, were a new record for New Zealand (and their first nine-for) on Test debut. True, it was against a second-string South Africa unit at home, but the talent was evident.
O’Rourke followed this with two wickets against Australia before embarking on the tour of Sri Lanka, never a great place for touring fast bowlers. Here, he claimed 8-104 in the first Test – the second-best figures by a New Zealand fast bowler in the nation since 1990/91.
New Zealand lost that Test. They were pummelled by an innings in the second match. O’Rourke went wicketless, but still finished with eight wickets at 23.12 – this, in a series where all other fast bowlers between them took four scalps (Asitha Fernando two, Tim Southee two) at 71 apiece.
For a non-Asian fast bowler in his first year of Test cricket to return from a stronghold of spin with remarkable numbers is impressive enough, but to take twice as many wickets as all other fast bowlers put together was something else.
Will O’Rourke be a threat to India?
Perhaps not. Perhaps it will depend on what the pitches, but if the Tests against England and Bangladesh are anything to go by, India are moving away from rank turners at home. Yes, the surfaces do assist spin, but they also assist pace.
Of course, New Zealand fast bowlers have impressed in India. The Hadlee brothers – Dayle and Richard – have terrific records in the country, as had Bruce Taylor, but they were from another era, but it does not end with them.
Southee, O’Rourke’s only Test captain to date, has 20 wickets at 28.70 in India. With 4-80 and 3-30, Daryl Tuffey had shaken up the hosts at Mohali in 2003/04. At Ahmedabad in 2010, Chris Martin (5-63) reduced India to 15-5. Trent Boult, Matt Henry, and Neil Wagner were more than a handful at Kolkata in 2016/17. And, of course, Jamieson’s haul of six wickets had India under pressure at Kanpur the last time New Zealand played Test cricket here.
Whether O’Rourke can match their feats needs to be seen. In all probability, New Zealand are likely to use him in short bursts along with a second fast bowler as the spinners (led by Ajaz Patel) wheel away at the other end.
But in his brief career, he has given ample evidence of being able to adjust according to conditions, and strike at regular intervals on pitches that were not designed for bowlers of his kind. He will almost certainly be analysing the India fast bowlers, or Hasan Mahmud, who had rocked India at Chennai not too long ago.
This is going to be the first truly great challenge of his career, but if he passes in flying colours, O’Rourke will return home as a star.
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