Jayden Seales unfurled his arms in celebration, running straight to the slip cordon but bypassing all of them with a brushing slap of hands.

He yelled at the crowd in celebration, his pent-up emotions spilling out. The wicket of Harry Brook was the second in six balls for England in the morning session of day two, leaving them in a precarious position at 54-5 and putting the West Indies ahead in the match. But this was about more than just the game situation.

This is Seales’ first Test series since November 2022. Since he burst onto the scene in the 2020 U19 World Cup, having honed his craft in the early days on his family’s avocado farm, his path has been blocked by a string of successive injuries. This series represents the re-emergence of Seales as one of the standout bowling prospects for the next decade.

He's stood out by playing on England's batters' egos and testing their techniques. The first breakthrough of the innings also came from Seales, tempting Zak Crawley well outside off to get the nick. Both his and Ben Duckett’s shots were poor ones, fishing at balls that would have struggled to hit a second set of stumps. However, based on how England’s openers work, that’s a fruitful area to bowl to them early in the innings. Throwing those kinds of balls out, tempting them with the promise of roars from the Hollies when they find the boundary, only to prompt stunned silence when some swing finds the edge, is just as effective as probing the fourth-stump line.

This has been a trend throughout the series. At Trent Bridge, he picked up Root in the first innings with a short ball wide of the off stump, drawing England’s No.4 into a wild pull shot that flumped to mid-on. Twelve overs later, he enticed a horror shot from Harry Brook, almost as bad as the one he drew out of Jamie Smith to end the innings. 

That's not to say Seales has only picked up wickets from England's errors; he has also displayed some traditionally exceptional bowling. At Lord’s, he picked up Duckett for an uncharacteristic three off 13, hitting the late eighties, pitched up, sliding across the left-hander, just taking the nick through to Joshua Da Silva. Then there was another Crawley dismissal, this one the best of the lot, swinging in, a perfect yorker pinning back leg stump.

Seales has been by far the West Indies’ most threatening bowler in this series, and it shows in the stats. He’s their leading wicket-taker with 13 wickets across four innings, with five more wickets at present than the next on the list, Alzarri Joseph, and second of both sides to Gus Atkinson. On a personal level, it’s been a fairytale comeback summer for the 22-year-old.

Seales spent the run into the series bowling for Sussex in the County Championship. He took 24 wickets in six games and is a big part of the reason the South Coast side now sit at the top of the Division Two table. That also highlights the importance of preparation. While others in the West Indies squad were playing in the T20 World Cup or on a rest after the end of their first-class competition, the overs Seales put in his legs have stood him in good stead.

The Sussex deal is second time lucky. He was meant to join the county last year but was unable to take up the deal after injuring his knee. That knee injury was a dark time in Seales’ young career, coming at the end of a long line of injuries which had kept him out of West Indies Test action since the end of 2022.

“It’s been frustrating, emotional and depressing,” Seales told Wisden Cricket Monthly ahead of the series. “Having to do a knee surgery at a young age was not something I even dreamt of in my wildest imagination. When I heard the news I had to have surgery I was on the phone to my parents and I was crying, distraught that I actually had to do the surgery.

“I had six weeks without walking, just crutches. After that was toes on the ground. Then another two weeks before I could put my body weight through my foot again and walk properly. And then there were baby steps after that getting back into jogging and gym work just to get my body back accustomed to where it was. That was the hardest thing I had to go through as a person and in my career so far.

“Coming off that and getting fit again, then getting a shoulder injury literally 12 months after, when I thought I was back to my best or close to, was another hard thing to take but with everything, you take it in your stride and it will get better, and you can come back stronger. I think that’s really helped me this time around.”

Seales first broke onto the scene as a raw, talented teenager, making his Test debut against South Africa after playing just one first-class match. It’s a story not dissimilar to Shamar Joseph’s and, three Tests in, he got his own version of that fairytale. Pakistan needing one wicket to win in Kingston, he blocked out 13 balls to ensure the West Indies went 1-0 up. He was awarded Player of the Match, both for holding out at the end with the bat, and the maiden Test five-for he took in the game.

Six Test matches in 2022 were Seales’ lot before he sustained the injury which would keep him out until the England series. Despite how truncated with injuries his early career has been, no West Indies seamer has taken more wickets than Seales. In that timeframe, he is one of three bowlers in the world to have taken 50 or more wickets having played less than 15 Tests, the others being Matt Henry and Shaheen Shah Afridi.

“My goal when I was a young boy was to be No.1 in the world for at least three to five years,” said Seales. “So maybe [I will be] up there at some point or at least break into the top three in Test cricket.”

Seales' raw potential was never in doubt, and his returns in England have been a testament to that. He’s reaped the rewards of the days spent hobbling around on crutches, and can now bask in the limelight he’s created for himself.

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