It is, on the face of it, a stunning call. And yet, when he was named in the squad for the second Test as Mark Wood’s replacement, it wasn’t met with the kind of total shock and bafflement you might expect. Partly this is because it had been trailed, Rob Key talking up the Hullkster back when he was just a massive 19-year-old with an even smaller wickets tally. And partly it’s because England have made a habit of this, tearing up the selection rulebook under Brendon McCullum’s stewardship, largely with positive results.

Hull’s debut rounds out an XI of Test picks all varying degrees of puzzling. Let’s rank them by bafflement.

England’s 11 most bonkers Bazball selections, ranked

11. Ben Duckett

This was England picking a No.3 to open, and also England giving a job where the key skill, traditionally, has been knowing not what to play to a guy who tries to get bat on every ball he can. But Duckett did open in his first go in Test cricket, and he’s been such a success that any qualms were instantly dispelled. By their standards, this is almost boring.

10. Josh Tongue

Picking a guy who had last taken 20 wickets in a season all the way back in 2018 to be one of your key Ashes bowlers is sort of mad. But Tongue’s early career work had been so impressive that even back then he was being spoken of as an international prospect, and it made sense to get him in during a brief window in which he wasn’t injured, especially when he’d been one of the season’s standout bowlers to that point. It helped that he took five-for on debut as well.

9. Ollie Pope

Remember those innocent early Bazball days, when Ollie Pope moving from No.4 to No.3 was the biggest story in town? Little did we know what was in store. It was still a bit mad though, given he’d never done the job for Surrey, and given he wasn’t even in the England team at the time after a horror Ashes tour. All it took was one phone call to Stokes saying he was keen. Most of England’s key selection decisions happen digitally now.

8. Will Jacks

Squint and it makes sense. For the peculiar requirements of Test cricket in Pakistan, England needed a spinner who could bowl a lot of overs, even if unthreatening, while biffing it down the order, and Jacks had done it successfully for Surrey in the preceding summer. But this was also England picking someone primarily as a spinner who had averaged 47 the preceding season. Naturally, he took six-for on debut.

7. Tom Hartley

Maybe this felt less mad at the time than it should have because England also picked Shoaib Bashir simultaneously, on similar rationale - release height, basically - but with far flimsier traditional basis. But it wasn’t as if Hartley had torn it up in the County Championship that season, taking 19 wickets at 45, and it also meant eschewing Jacks, the previous entrant on this list, despite his wicket glut on debut, and overlooking Liam Dawson, one of the county game's premier all-rounders. England were instantly vindicated by Hartley’s scintillating seven to win the Hyderabad Test.

6. Moeen Ali

Two words, eight letters, say it and I’m yours. ‘Ashes?’ ‘LOL’. The instantly iconic two-word text exchange confirmed the unretirement of one of England’s best-loved modern cricketers, and as unexpected as it was, there was some logic to it. This was a big series so England needed a big player, with Moeen’s Ashes story unfinished. But England did have options, with not one but two tweakers having taken five-for on debut the previous winter, and with the next tour of India showing the cupboard was hardly bare. And then when you add in that Moeen finished up batting at No.3, a place in mid-table feels right.

5. Dan Lawrence

He’s England’s spare bat, England had a gap at the top, and so he opened. It’s no nonsense, but also, it’s nonsense. Yes, technically, Lawrence, like Duckett, has spent a long time at No.3 in county cricket. But there are first drops and there are first drops. And God love him, with those wrists and that sense of fun, he’s as far from the opening archetype as you can get. He's got one more Test to show the experiment was worth trying.

4. Liam Livingstone

Bet you’d forgotten about this one! Livingstone’s the answer you’ll never get on the Sporcle quiz asking you to remember the XIs from England’s Rawalpindi rout, making two single-figure scores and not bowling after injuring his knee in the field. The logic was similar to Jacks’ selection. What sees this take a spot in the top four is that Livingstone hadn’t played a first-class game in over a year, and also hasn’t played one since.

3. Rehan Ahmed

Leg-spin bowling is the kind of thing you master by your mid-thirties, if you’re lucky. Instead, England picked an 18-year-old who had played three first-class games. It helped that in the last of those, he picked up a five-for and smashed a century. And it helped further that he took another five-wicket bag on debut.

2. Shoaib Bashir

You know the story by now, but that doesn’t make it any less mad. Shoaib Bashir - a hot prospect, but also on his first-class debut - bowls a stirring spell to Alastair Cook, beating the bat twice in his first over. This is clipped up on stuck on Twitter, as it was then. Stokes sees it, sticks it in a WhatsApp chat with Baz and Key, and the rest is history, Bashir picked with only ten first-class wickets to his name. That fabled release height also helped his cause, and while his Test debut didn’t match the fireworks of some of the others on this list, he has gone on to establish himself as England’s first choice.

1. Josh Hull

Obviously, this is the most batshit of them all. You can get a bit funky picking the spinners. The English game doesn’t help them, and for a tour of the subcontinent you need more of them than are generally starring in the county game. But because of that, there should be a whole host of seamers to choose from. That’s the easy bit! Just Whang it down somewhere near off-stump at somewhere near 78mph and let the pitch and the ball do the work! And there are, of course, plenty of seamers to chose from.

England have named their XI for the third Test against Sri Lanka beginning on Friday.

Josh Hull replaces Matthew Potts.

➡️ https://t.co/YmSgSIzpM7#ENGvSL pic.twitter.com/khdl7qwx5D

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) September 4, 2024

Sam Cook is the bowler with the most right to feel aggrieved as England have instead opted for a guy with 16 wickets at an average north of 60, up there with the worst records of any regular bowler in the county game at present. So why’s Hull in? Because he’s massive (and he is properly massive, the thought of him next to Duckett in the anthem line alone justifies the selection), he bowls with his left arm, and he’s capable of hitting speeds around the 90mph mark. England think those are the raw ingredients that could have an impact in Australia in 18 months’ time, and they think the best way to get those raw ingredients ready to be served is in the Test cricket cauldron. He’ll probably take eight, because that’s how these things go.

***

So we’ve got an XI. Pope has the gloves (though Jamie Smith, picked this summer despite not keeping for Surrey, could also have been a candidate). There’s only three specialist bats, though there’s still plenty of batting with Rehan at No.7 and Hartley at No.8. There’s also six spin options, and seven if you include Lawrence’s freak-breaks. It’s a weird XI, no getting away from it. But it’s also the sort of team McCullum might pick, just for a laugh.

England’s bonker’s Bazball picks: The XI

Ben Duckett
Dan Lawrence
Ollie Pope (wk)
Moeen Ali
Will Jacks
Liam Livingstone
Rehan Ahmed
Tom Hartley
Josh Tongue
Shoaib Bashir
Josh Hull

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