Fulton had first met O’Rourke when he was in charge of New Zealand at the 2020 Under-19 World Cup in South Africa. He was a moments bowler back then, capable of creating ooohs and aaahs, but that rarely wins cricket matches.
“I think when he first started playing first-class cricket for Canterbury, he probably bowled too short and he beat the bat a lot, but didn’t necessarily take a lot of wickets because he wasn’t always threatening the stumps,” Fulton tells ESPNcricinfo.
“For all the improvements he’s made over the last three-four years, I still feel he’s got a lot of improvement in him,” Fulton says. “He’s played some white-ball cricket – a little bit of 50-over cricket against Bangladesh – he’s probably just scratching the surface in terms of his white-ball game and T20 game as well. No reason to think that he won’t be able to adapt over the years as other teams scout him a bit better and he works out what he has to do to evolve his game.”
O’Rourke has already had some practice in that regard. While working with Donkers, he realised there were some technical flaws in his bowling action and worked to remedy them.
“He may not take a whole lot of wickets on this tour, but if he doesn’t, he will again at some stage in the future. He will learn and will work out what he needs to do. So, really excited to see him go over there in India and see how he bowls against some high-class players”
Peter Fulton on Will O’Rourke’s tour of India
“I won’t claim to be an expert in fast-bowling actions; Brendon Donkers made some good adjustments,” Fulton says. “Will probably fell away a little bit at the point of release in his action. They [Donkers and Co.] just worked on trying to maximise the attributes that he already had. He’s already tall, so he tried to get him nice and tall at the crease so that he’s delivering the ball as high as possible.
“They also tinkered around some things with his wrist and, at times, he moves the ball back into the right-hander. But when he gets his wrist right, he also has the ability to swing the ball away from the right-hander. It didn’t take him very long to pick that up and understand that there’s a difference between being told something and actually understanding something.”
When O’Rourke started his domestic career, he largely operated in the 130kph range, but he can now crank it up towards 140kph and also move the ball both ways at that pace. Prioritising fitness and working in a competitive environment like Canterbury, which has a number of other international fast bowlers like Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Henry Shipley and Zak Foulkes, have accelerated O’Rourke’s growth.
“That work ethic, and the attention O’Rourke has paid to the S&C [strength and conditioning] side of the game is what has taken him from bowling maybe 120ks-early 130ks to now touching towards 140,” Fulton says. “When he first started to come to our trainings, he wasn’t unfit, but he wasn’t that strong and hadn’t spent a lot of time in the gym. But now if you compare him to all our contracted players at Canterbury, he’s probably the one leading the running sessions and fitness.
“Don’t think he’s played with Kyle yet. Kyle’s obviously injured now – so they haven’t crossed paths much on the field as yet. But definitely being around other guys like Matt Henry as well [helps]. O’Rourke has picked up a lot from some of those guys. Also, the competitive environment in Canterbury with other good players and other good bowlers around you, I guess it raises the standard of all the players and O’Rourke has certainly been a beneficiary of that.”
“He [O’Rourke] is pretty excited about the challenge of going to India, which probably along with playing Australia in Australia is the two toughest challenges in world cricket,” Fulton says. “You can’t guarantee results; you just have to try and stick to the process and hope the results come. I’ve got no doubt whether he takes a lot of wickets in the first Test or the second or third… I have no doubt that he will bowl well and learn.
“He may not take a whole lot of wickets on this tour, but if he doesn’t, he will again at some stage in the future. He will learn and will work out what he needs to do. So, really excited to see him go over there in India and see how he bowls against some high-class players.”
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
