One fortunate punter who believed 14 years in the past that Josh Tongue would sooner or later play for England and positioned a cheeky guess will win 50,000 kilos ($A95,500) when the quick bowler makes his worldwide debut towards Ireland.
Tim Piper had watched Tongue play when he was simply an 11-year-old and positioned a 100-pound guess at odds of 500-1 that he would play a Test match for England sooner or later.
“I’ve kept the bet slip in a cupboard all these years,” Piper informed BBC Sport.
“I just thought to myself, ‘it must be worth 100 pounds’. If he doesn’t make it, he’d make us proud anyway. This is just a bonus for him to get in the test team.
Tongue, the son of Piper’s club teammate Phil, was a spinner at the time and the 56-year-old had seen enough to realise he was destined for great things.
“There was this little child who bowled leg-spin, googlies and top-spinners. It was like Shane Warne,” Piper added.
Tongue, 25, switched to fast bowling when he moved to the Worcestershire academy and Piper said he kept an eye on the bowler who went on to pick up 162 wickets in first-class cricket.
Tongue had, however, contemplated retirement during a 15-month shoulder-injury layoff from 2021-2022 before two operations and botox injections fixed the issue.
He finally earned his England call-up for this week’s one-off Test against Ireland at Lord’s starting Thursday after injury concerns over fellow quicks James Anderson and Ollie Robinson.
“He had all these accidents, however I by no means gave up on him,” Piper added. “I stored pondering, ‘possibly it might probably occur’. These final two weeks have been a mad turnaround.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
