England rate Josh Hull – but does he yet rate himself?

2 minute read

Josh Hull is only the second left-arm seamer to play a Test for England since Ryan Sidebottom in 2010. At 6ft 7in, he’s tall too. These are very attractive qualities which Hull has had to make zero effort to develop.

Confidence is a funny thing. A lot of intelligent, pragmatic, adaptable people are blessed with none of it and struggle to get a toe-hold in life. Others gambol about with this great sense of entitlement and consistently fail their way to greater things, apparently oblivious to the depths of their incompetence.

Most of us are somewhere in between. We develop self confidence based on our aptitude for a given thing. When we’re rubbish at it, we lack confidence. As we get better, our confidence grows.

When you’ve put a lot of work into understanding something and developing relevant skills, you feel more at home with that thing. You rate yourself. That sort of conscious effort tends to provide you with a certain psychological ballast. When things aren’t going your way, you recognise that’s a thing that can happen, rather than worrying you’re fundamentally not up to the job.

But what about when your greatest attributes aren’t based on effort? How do you feel then?

We’re not saying Josh Hull hasn’t worked on his bowling. Of course he has. He can swing the ball, he’s decently accurate and maybe he’s got a few other tricks up his sleeve. (Lord knows there’s room for a few with those arms.)

What this effort hasn’t yet translated to is a really obvious case to be considered one of England’s best bowlers. A first-class average of 62.75 is poor, even if it’s only from 10 games. This season’s average of 182.50 (in the second division) is worse.

For clarity, our feeling here is this is fine. If England picked bowlers based on County Championship averages, they’d end up looking more than a little fast-medium. You need to add a bit more variety than that and in the very tall left-arm seam bowler category, Hull has the best average – even if that average is terrible.

We’re just not quite sure whether self-confidence will have kept pace with status when you’re a 20-year-old who’s leapfrogged any number of incredibly skilful bowlers who’ve been grafting away, honing their art for a lot more years than you have.

Brendon McCullum doesn’t keep his reasoning under his hat and he makes it pretty plain that he sees being young, gigantic and left-handed as three of Hull’s most significant strengths.

“Josh Hull? Six foot heaps, bowls left-arm, ranges in pace from 80 to 90 miles an hour. Swings it – not too dissimilar to the likes of Jimmy Anderson. He’s 20 years of age… good farming stock. It’s not a huge gamble, is it?”

He also says it might not work out this week, but that doesn’t matter because Hull’s someone they’re fundamentally interested in long-term.

The hot-housing task here then is to imbue Hull with enough confidence that he can exploit those natural attributes until the point at which that confidence becomes self sustaining.

McCullum always says that he wants to make his players feel 10ft tall. We suppose that’s a bit less of an ask when you’re dealing with a player who’s already two-thirds of the way there.

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