England have called up rookie left-arm seamer Josh Hull for the remaining two Tests against Sri Lanka after Mark Wood was ruled out of the rest of the series through injury.

Wood, who left the field on day three of England’s win in the opening Test at Old Trafford, is out after scans on Saturday revealed a muscle strain to his right thigh.

i understands the fast bowler is not a doubt at this stage for England’s three-Test series in Pakistan in October but his absence for the remainder of this series against Sri Lanka is a blow given his explosive form this summer.

Who is Josh Hull?

The call-up of Hull, who only turned 20 last week and has played just nine first-class games, is an intriguing one.

Rob Key, England’s director of cricket, signalled the Leicestershire bowler was on his radar when he namechecked him as a potential pick back in March.

But to pick a bowler who is averaging 182 with the ball this season in the County Championship is a bold call. Indeed, Hull’s first-class average stands at 58.06 and he has never taken a five-wicket haul in professional cricket.

However, England’s selection policy under Key, Test coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes has usually been to disregard county form and statistics and rely more on a gut feel about a player’s potential.

It worked with off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who has taken over as the Test team’s main spinner from Jack Leach after he was picked for last winter’s tour of India largely on a hunch after McCullum and Stokes had been impressed by clips they’d seen of him bowling at former England captain Sir Alastair Cook last summer.

Hull’s selection is equally remarkable, yet his pace, bowling in the mid-to-late 80s, 6ft 7in frame and left-arm angle means has the raw attributes to be a formidable bowler.

England were impressed with his performance for the Lions against Sri Lanka at Worcester earlier this month.

Hull took the key wickets of Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and captain Dhananjaya De Silva to help rout the tourists for 139 on the first day.

He followed up with two more wickets in Sri Lanka’s second innings as England’s second string completed a seven-wicket win.

Sri Lanka showed more fight at Old Trafford as they made England work extremely hard for a five-wicket win in the opening Test.

It remains doubtful whether Hull would be thrown into the XI for this week’s second Test at Lord’s, a ground he has never played at.

Olly Stone, the Warwickshire fast bowler, is the most likely replacement for Wood.

Yet Stone, who has been beset with injury issues since the last of his three Test appearances in 2021, has hardly been in sparkling form this summer, averaging 52 in the Championship and returning figures of one for 109 in his most recent match at Durham.

Handing Hull a Test debut this week, though, would cap a remarkable rise for a player who only made his first-class debut 16 months ago, when he took the wicket of former England opener Adam Lyth with his fourth ball in professional cricket.

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Born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, Hull grew up on a farm where he practised bowling in his father’s barn, something he and brother Ollie did a lot to keep active and pass the time during lockdown.

Indeed, Hull’s passion for cricket was sparked during the pandemic, with the youngster whose first passion was rugby saying earlier this year: “Growing up, being a rugby player was more what I dreamt of but then, when I was 15, I broke my arm.

“That meant I missed the following season but I could play cricket because I broke my right arm, so I could still bowl with my left.

“Then, the following year after that, was lockdown, so I missed another rugby season. That is when cricket became the focus. Cricket went well, so I carried it on.”

Cricket runs in the family, too, with his grandmother’s brother Grenville Wilson a left-arm seamer for Worcestershire in the 1950s.

Coached at Stamford School in Lincolnshire by Dean Headley, he was recommended to another former England bowler in Phillip DeFreitas at Leicestershire. After a year in the academy at Grace Road he had made his professional debut.

Australia’s Mitchell Starc is his role model, with Hull saying: “He is another left-armer, of similar height. He does what I want to do as well, swings the ball back in, so he is the one I’d see as a role model.

“I like to use my height to generate extra bounce, I’ve got my variations and obviously different batters have strengths and weaknesses which you analyse before the game. But basically you just run in, hit the pitch as hard as possible and try to get things to happen.”