Josh Hull beamed. At the Oval, he was engulfed by his team-mates, ruffling his hair as they celebrated. Next to each other on the team balcony, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum glowed with delight at the indication of another unorthodox selection being vindicated.

Hull had his maiden Test wicket. It did not, perhaps, come in the manner that he would have envisaged: a booming drive caught in the covers, rather than edged behind the wicket. No matter. He could delight in his first Test wicket for England, an achievement that only 415 men before him have enjoyed.

Watching from the top of the JM Finn Stand, Hull’s parents Tony and Antonia, could reflect on all the sacrifices that had helped get their son to Test cricket. The inherited love of the game; the ferrying around the country to play youth games; the barn that, during the pandemic, they had allowed Josh and his younger brother to play in.

Each Test cap is simultaneously an individual triumph and a family one. “It is so nice that the family is here to show that as well because of being a parent myself and just how much you go through for your children,” Andrew Flintoff said when presenting Hull with his Test cap on the first morning of the Test. “Driving them everywhere and taking them to places, but also the nerves of watching your kids play.”

Aged 20, in defiance of a record of 16 wickets at an average of 62.9 in first-class cricket, Hull’s selection was an endorsement of his potential: his cocktail of 6ft 7in height, left-arm angle and swing. Yet it was also a nod to England’s Test history.

Sixteen left-arm quicks have taken 100 wickets; there is not an Englishman among them, with Bill Voce’s 98 a national record. In English conditions, accurate swing and seam right-arm bowling has normally sufficed.

Where seamers enjoy less assistance from the conditions, left-arm variety has been craved. India and Pakistan have produced three left-armers apiece to claim 100 Test wickets, including Wasim Akram, probably the finest of them all. Australia boast four such bowlers, the most of any country: the Mitchells, Starc and Johnson, Alan Davidson and Bruce Reid.

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Hull’s first five overs in Test cricket gave a snapshot of why England have been unperturbed by his underwhelming domestic statistics. Entering the attack in the 12th over, from the Pavillion End, was ideal: the period when this batch of Dukes balls tend to swing the most.

Bowling over the wicket, Hull adopted the left-armer’s classic line-of-attack to the right-handers: angling the ball across, and then swinging it back. Even as he was driven on both sides of the wicket, Hull continued to pitch the ball up, generating swing. For a left-armer, their angle of attack means that deliveries that do not swing can be most dangerous of all, if batsmen play for movement back into them that does not materialise. After several balls had swung back into Pathum Nissanka, Hull’s wicket came with a delivery that did not swing, instead shaping further away from Nissanka as he leant into a drive.

With such an audacious selection, rawness was expected. Hull erred bowling both too full and too short, and offered too much width outside off stump. While he was clocked at 87mph, Hull’s average speed was 82.8mph, which dropped during his five-over spell; his final delivery was only 81mph.

For all the excitement about Hull’s height, his action does not maximise these natural attributes. Falling away a little in the crease, Hull’s average release point was clocked at 2.05 metres – the same as his height. For context, Steve Harmison, who was 6ft 3in, had an average release point of 2.24 metres, or 7ft 3in – gaining an extra foot on his natural height with his action, rather than bowling at the same height. England will hope that Hull can make more of his height, thereby generating a higher release point; whether he can do so without sacrificing his swing is a question. The length of his run-up was also highlighted by Stuart Broad when commentating on Sky Sports.

Early questions are natural about such an experimental pick; for Hull, dropping a simple catch at mid on from Dhananjaya de Silva was an unwanted denouement to the day of his first wicket. Yet England’s approach is to focus on how players can improve, not their limitations. If Hull’s first bowl in international cricket showed the development that he will need to forge a long Test career, it also contained enough hints of the reasons for England’s faith.