“Previously, I’ve always tried to swing it out,” Wong said. “If you asked me who I was as a new-ball bowler, I’d always tell you I’d swing it out, try and find the edge, whereas I guess that little flip is actually trying to wobble it and just keep really tight to the stumps.

“It’s probably been something that I’ve bowled for six, seven years but, in my head, it’s not been the stock ball. So the switch in mindset is that that probably now sits as my stock ball, whereas it hasn’t in previous times.”

She bowled Ireland skipper Gaby Lewis, who had scored fifty in the opening match in Leicester on Tuesday, with one that nipped back in through the gate and crashed into leg stump. Wong also broke a 57-run stand for the fifth wicket between the in-form Amy Hunter and Leah Paul with one that wobbled on a tight line as Paul swung at it, skimming the inside edge onto off stump.

Allrounder Orla Prendergast, Ireland’s most accomplished batter, later described facing Wong as challenging. “You’re aware probably that her threat is that wobble that comes back in but it’s hard to see and it’s hard to pick, which today was probably reflected through her figures,” Prendergast said.

It was “a very enlightening conversation” – not with the England coaching staff but with Dean Wilson, the team’s media manager and a former cricket journalist with years of experience – that Wong credited for her mindset switch.

“I’d sort of hated the idea and then we kind of chatted it through and chewed the fat of it,” Wong said. “It sounds silly but sometimes having that chat with somebody who’s not necessarily involved in cricket, tactical decisions, it felt like I could really say what I felt.

“When it came out I was like, ‘actually that’s not as maybe stupid as I thought it was when it was in my head, but maybe not as black and white either,’ so I’m trying to find some sort of happiness in the nice grey area.”

It’s easy to forget that Wong has played just six ODIs and 26 games for England overall. Before this series, she hadn’t played a 50-over match for her country since the 2024 tour of Ireland, held while many of England’s first-choice players were preparing in Abu Dhabi for the T20 World Cup.

She also featured in two T20Is on that trip, having played no international cricket for a year before that as the form which led to her international debut as 20-year-old tearaway speedster in 2022 left her. She carried drinks throughout this summer’s home T20 World Cup campaign when England finished as runners-up to Australia and said her growth as a player even over the past three months had been considerable.

“The journey’s quite short I guess but it feels like behind the scenes there’s a lot of that and a lot of work so it’s really pleasing,” she said. “I feel like I’ve come on a lot and it feels like I’ve worked quite hard and I guess when you work hard then good things happen.”

The absence of Lauren Bell, the leader of England’s seam department who is resting for this series, has left Wong with greater responsibility alongside Lauren Filer, also an unused member of the T20 World Cup squad. Ryana MacDonald-Gay replaced Filer in the attack in Derby, making her first England appearance since the 2024-25 Ashes Test after being struck down by a back injury in the middle of last year.

“It feels like we’ve worked together quite a lot in various different places and it’s been really cool for us to go out and showcase how far it feels like we’ve come,” Wong said. “Lauren Bell has been brilliant at really passing on her knowledge.

“She’s obviously played a lot more games than the three of us and certainly for me and Filer to be able to spend the international summer working really closely, it feels like the three of us got to know each other really well.

“Then I was fortunate enough to play with Belly at the Brave and I feel like we kept information sharing, so it’s more, it feels like cashing in on some of that experience that she’s passed on to us [rather] than jumping in her grave.”