‘The Mop’ is Josh Tongue’s nickname: recognition of his capacity to clean up the tail. Ben Stokes likes to joke about Tongue’s penchant for “rabbit pie”, as he showed by celebrating at Headingley with an impression of the bowler scoffing.

Tongue’s dismantling of the tail in Leeds was instrumental in England’s victory. While England’s bottom four contributed 73 runs in their first innings, India mustered nine runs across both innings combined. Five of those wickets fell to Tongue in devastating spells: four for seven in the first innings and three wickets in four balls in the second. Tongue’s method was simple: bowling fast, spearing the ball in either short or at yorker length, and attacking the stumps.

Too often, England has lacked such prowess. In the 2023-25 World Test Championship, the average number of runs that England conceded for the last four wickets was the sixth worst out of nine teams.

YHoweverwelcome Tongue’s qualities against the tail, Test cricket requires that bowlers can do far more. Twenty20 allows for specialist death bowlers; the demands of Test cricket do not create scope for such a role. Quick bowlers must be effective in all climes – or, at least, maintain control when they are not incisive.

As the clock ticked towards noon on the opening morning at Edgbaston, Stokes handed Tongue the ball. In their contrasting ways – Chris Woakes bowling fuller with more swing, Brydon Carse bowling shorter and with extra pace – England’s quicks both bowled immaculate opening spells. After 11 overs, India had stumbled to 21 for one; both batsmen at the crease had needed an umpire’s call to survive lbw appeals against Woakes.

Tongue needed only three balls to alter the feel of the morning, just not as he had hoped. After his first delivery was tucked away for one by Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tongue then greeted Karun Nair with a pair of half-volleys. Both deliveries met the same fate: Nair caressed the ball through the covers for four.

It set the template for Tongue’s opening spell. Where Woakes and Carse had been relentlessly probing, Tongue was by turns too short and too full – and often too wide to boot. Tongue leaked eight boundaries in his first spell, culminating in three consecutive fours by Jaiswal: an imperious hook through square leg, then back-to-back cut shots, jumping up on his toes like a meerkat peeking over a wall. By the time the six-over spell was over, he nursed figures of nought for 42; India had raced to 91 for one.

While England bowled admirably on a flat pitch for much of the day, Tongue emphatically ranked bottom of the captain’s list of preferred bowlers. Indeed, with England seeking wickets with the short ball when the ball had gone soft, Stokes opted to use himself. Tongue only bowled 10 of India’s first 73 overs.

When he returned, he was given an orthodox field, with two slips. While there was a tantalising hint of reverse swing, Tongue only bowled a perfunctory three overs until Joe Root was whisked on before the second new ball. On the opening day, Tongue conceded 66 from 13 wicketless overs.

These figures extend Tongue’s travails against India’s top order this summer. Bowling to the top six across the first two Tests, Tongue has now taken one for 188 from 43.3 overs: a record that explains Stokes’ reluctance to bowl him on the first day in Birmingham.

In his first Test appearances, Tongue showed no such struggles against the top order. Indeed, in his second Test, at Lord’s against Australia in 2023, all of Tongue’s wickets were top-order players, including dismissing David Warner and Steve Smith twice apiece. At his best, Tongue’s cocktail of pace approaching 90mph, an awkward angle from wide of the crease and seam movement can trouble the world’s very best.

But after returning from an injury-ruined 18 months this summer, Tongue has only threatened India’s best batsmen for occasional balls, not whole overs or extended spells. And, however brilliant Tongue was against the tail in Leeds, his record there against the lower-order is not sustainable for any bowler.

If he is to enjoy the extended Test run that his talents suggest, then Tongue will have to be much more than a mop. The sight of Jofra Archer carrying the drinks at Edgbaston showed the alternative that England will soon be able to summon instead.