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| Venue: Lord’s Dates: 1-4 June |
| Coverage: Live text commentary and in-play video clips on the BBC Sport website & app, plus BBC Test Match Special on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra. Daily Today at the Test highlights on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from 19:00 BST. |
When Josh Tongue walks out at Lord’s on Thursday he will not only earn his first Test cap, but also £50,000 for a family friend who placed an unlikely bet 14 years ago.
Tim Piper wagered £100 at odds of 500-1 when Tongue was only 11 years old that he would go on to play a Test for England.
Now, Piper is in line for huge payout when Worcestershire’s Tongue makes his debut against Ireland.
“I’ve kept the bet slip in a cupboard all these years,” Piper tells BBC Sport. “I just thought to myself ‘it must be worth £100’. 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.”
Incredibly, Piper wanted to place the bet when Tongue was aged just six, but could not find a bookmaker that would offer odds.
Piper, 56, was a team-mate of Tongue’s father Phil at Redditch Cricket Club in the 1990s. Josh was taken to the club as a child and began his cricketing life as a leg-spinner.
“It was amazing,” says Piper. “There was this little kid who bowled leg-spin, googlies and top-spinners. It was like Shane Warne.”
Though the Tongue family moved away from Redditch when Josh was six, Piper kept tabs on him as he was converted to a pace bowler in the Worcestershire academy.
He placed the bet directly with the head office of gambling firm Coral and “must have sent a cheque to them”.
“The betslip says ‘to play a Test match for England’,” says Piper, who is the landlord of the Cricketers Arms pub in Redditch.
It was a bet that looked unlikely to be a winner last summer when Tongue considered retiring because of a persistent shoulder injury.
But he found a cure through Botox injections and will make his Test debut after a late call-up to the England squad last week.
“He had all those injuries, but I never gave up on him,” says Piper. “I kept thinking ‘maybe it can happen’. These last two weeks have been a mad turnaround.”
Piper is hoping to be at Lord’s and is planning on spending some of his winnings taking the whole Tongue family out for a celebratory dinner.
“Test cricketers don’t come from Redditch. It just doesn’t happen,” he says. “If he gets a five-for and goes on the honours board at Lord’s it will be absolutely wonderful.”
By Stephan Shemilt
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