‘He’s a gentle giant… until you get a ball in his hand’: New Zealand coach reveals the ‘hostile’ and ‘nasty’ bowler England should fear most this summer – and why he poses unique threat to Ben Stokes’ side

The man who helped New Zealand’s bowling unit deliver a champion punch has warned England of the dangers of getting into a skirmish with a bloke he simply refers to as ‘Nasty’.

Shane Jurgensen spent 10 years across two spells as the Black Caps’ bowling coach, a period in which they were crowned Test cricket’s inaugural world champions and made multiple appearances in global finals.

One in which the trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner took their place among the most skilful seamers on the international circuit – combining for 968 Test wickets.

But it is for a different facet of the fast bowling art – the fear of physical pain being inflicted – that Jurgensen gave the menacing nickname to one of their successors, the 6ft 5in Will O’Rourke.

‘I just call him Nasty,’ says Jurgensen, now head coach of Wellington and currently on a three-month secondment as bowling consultant with Gloucestershire.

‘I can draw upon some of the comments of my Wellington batters when he’s come steaming in at the Basin on a bouncy green one. Talk to them and the reaction has been, “woah”.

‘Will’s a gentle giant, a lovely kid, but it’s a different story when he gets the ball in his hand. He’s definitely hostile.’

The unique selling point for O’Rourke is his high release, just beyond the perpendicular, creating a trajectory for deliveries that makes opponents feel the ball is always following them.

‘Because he bowls with really good pace, uses the angle over the wicket and bowls in-swingers to the right hander, it’s an amazing threat he creates,’ Jurgensen tells Daily Mail Sport.

‘And he’s frightening because of his height, getting this horrific, steep bounce on all kinds of surfaces.

‘His big breakthrough Test series was against India when New Zealand beat them 3-0 away.’

Indeed, O’Rourke was instrumental in India being routed for 46, their lowest ever score on home soil, bagging seven wickets in that first Test in Bengaluru. His overall tally of 39 wickets in 11 Tests includes 10 in three against England on home soil 18 months ago.

The 24-year-old, born in London to Kiwi parents, has played only one Test since, due to back issues that also led to New Zealand limiting his County Championship appearances for Yorkshire last summer to one.

But, along with the colossal Kyle Jamieson – another to have endured stress fractures of the back – O’Rourke will freshen up an attack featuring different personnel from the one-off Test win in Ireland. Like new-ball operator Matt Henry, they are joining up with the squad straight from the Indian Premier League.

Rotating the bowlers is a scenario familiar to Australian Jurgensen, whose influential role in the rise of the Black Caps this century – between 2008-10 and again from 2016-2023 – also saw him win 11 of 13 matches standing in for previous head coach Gary Stead. 

When New Zealand won here in 2021 ahead of claiming the World Test Championship title with victory over India in Southampton, they made changes match to match.

Jurgensen’s vision in 2016, when he returned from a stint as Bangladesh head coach to resume his role, was to create ‘the most resilient and relentless bowling attack in the world’.

It helped that Southee, Boult and Wagner stayed fit by bowling lots of overs under supervision from Jurgensen and former Olympic athlete Chris Donaldson, New Zealand’s strength and conditioning coach.

And even in downtime, Jurgensen would round up that trio and others who lived around the Mount Maunganui area, like Kane Williamson and Colin de Grandhomme, to partake in ‘backyard’ training at Bay Oval.

‘In between series or tours, they would have their gym programme, and the gym was on the same area as the grass nets, so, we would basically arrange a bit of what you might see in basketball,’ Jurgensen explains.

‘You turn up to a basketball court and have a little bit of a battle, like some of the guys did in the NBA during the off-season.

‘We used to have some amazing, memorable net sessions in the greenhouse there. You’d have people going past, walking their dog, and they had no idea that inside you had probably one of the best Test batters in the last 20 years and some bowlers with hundreds of Test wickets running in, battling each other.

‘That environment used to breed communication. I remember one particular session, Trent was bowling to Kane, using an older ball that was reverse swinging, on the eve of playing on the subcontinent.

‘He was looking to swing the ball from around the wicket and one of the things that Kane told him was that if the ball just swung from that angle it was easy to play, but whenever the ball swung and bounced that bit more from slightly back of a length, it was much more threatening.

‘That was the type of conversation that would happen between the batters and the bowlers. Being so specific on detail and working together to get better is a real trait of the Black Caps.’