“I still can’t figure it out,” the former England spinner said on BBC Test Match Special seconds after England’s innings victory was confirmed on Saturday. “Shoaib Bashir’s just become a Test match bowler. A lot of that is down to Ben Stokes who gets the best out of him. I can’t understand why he can’t do it against the county batsmen. He seems to love the big stage.
At 21 and with more than half of his first-class appearances coming in Test matches, the spinner who was first spotted on an England & Wales Cricket Board app is raw, often wayward and incapable of tying up an end during spells.
This inexperience is why Bashir can’t get into Somerset’s team ahead of Jack Leach, a spinner who knows what it’s like to be taken down in Australia. It is also why he was forced to go on loan to Glamorgan at the start of this summer, where he struggled badly, averaging 152 as he took two wickets across two County Championship matches.
Bashir has the full support of England captain Ben Stokes (Photo: Getty)
This latest star turn at Trent Bridge came a year after he took a rapid five-wicket haul at this ground to hurry England to victory against the West Indies. He is now the only England bowler to take four five-wicket hauls before the age of 22.
There is no doubt that England, led by an ultra-positive captain in Stokes and coach in Brendon McCullum, trust Bashir implicitly. They are asking him to concentrate on producing wicket-taking deliveries rather than stemming the flow of runs.
That chat can be put to one side for now. But a poor series against India later this summer might see the argument gain traction again, especially with the Ashes drawing ever closer.
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Bashir admitted during the Test that being within this ultra-positive England set-up was his “happy place”. This is something former England captain Nasser Hussain pinpointed post-match, saying: “Imagine going out on loan, to a completely different environment, team, coaches, he must have felt so good coming back and seeing his mates, that empathy Stokes has with his team, you’ve seen it with Bashir. He loves playing for Stokes.”
“I know it’s an odd story to look at and I understand why some people find that hard to believe but those decisions in terms of who we pick and back are ours to make. If he keeps putting in performances like he’s done this week, hopefully one day it’ll probably make sense as to why we pick him.”
Whether he can withstand the pressure of Australia remains to be seen. But there’s no doubt that he has the full backing of the people who really count.
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