How a Twitter video, a Root pep talk and a Stokes love bomb got Bashir buzzing
As shoaib Bashir spun England to victory over West Indies at Trent Bridge on sunday evening, it was a dot ball — as much as any of his five wickets — that confirmed the promise spotted by Ben stokes last summer on social media.
Pitching wide of off stump, it lured Jason Holder into the drive, before turning back sharply through the gate and only narrowly missed the stumps. In execution, if not quite outcome, it was reminiscent of the delivery with which Graeme swann dismissed Ricky Ponting at Edgbaston in 2009.
swann was playing his 10th Test to Bashir’s fifth, but he was 30, a decade older than Bashir is now. And yet Bashir already has three five-wicket hauls, even though he did not bowl a ball against the West Indians at Lord’s. Not since left-arm spinner Nick Cook in the 1980s has an England player taken so many five-fors in his first five Tests.
English cricket has long clung to the view that slow bowlers don’t mature until late into their third decade, but stokes and coach Brendon McCullum treat conventional wisdom with the scepticism it deserves. And Bashir, feeling the love, is having a ball.
Asked which of his five wickets in Nottingham had given him most pleasure, he came up with an answer that only spinners — who enjoy a moral victory almost as much as a dismissal — will understand. ‘The ball I bowled to Holder through the gate that just missed the stumps,’ he said. ‘Yeah, that got me excited. It spun from wide as well, and I wasn’t expecting that. That was the most special one, I reckon.’
Later, varying his pace and angle, he did indeed bowl Holder, this time beating the outside edge with a ball almost 8mph faster than the near-miss — and all after chatting with Joe Root out in the middle about the value of mixing it up. Here was a 20-year-old learning on the hoof. Why wait until you’re 30?
stokes, who celebrated the dismissal by enveloping Bashir with a bear hug from behind, was full of admiration. ‘He was so aggressive and his intent was always to look to take wickets and never just to hold an end up,’ he said.
‘The way he can change his pace, over-spin, under-spin — he showed his full bag of tricks. The ball he got Jason Holder with was a great sign; you can see the seam was sideways.’
Bashir’s route to his seriesclinching haul of five for 41 feels wacky only if you haven’t been following stokes and his Bazballers.
He was selected for the tour of India earlier this year after the captain saw Twitter footage of him bowling to Alastair Cook on his first-class debut for somerset against Essex. He didn’t take his wicket, but troubled Cook — one of England’s greatest players of spin — with turn and bounce generated by his tall frame.
stokes excitedly shared the footage with McCullum and England MD Rob Key on WhatsApp: ‘Have a look at this. This could be something we could work with on our India tour.’
Other regimes might have taken one look at Bashir’s stats, 10 first-class wickets at 67, and moved on. But the management liked his high release point — he actually claims he is still growing — and, with Jack Leach dropping out in India through injury after one game, Bashir collected fivefors in Ranchi and Dharamsala. They were expensive, sure, but rich with promise.
Even the home summer has developed along unusual lines. As somerset’s second-choice spinner behind Leach, Bashir joined Worcestershire on loan — ‘a decision I had to make to play cricket at a high level’ — and was promptly carted for five successive sixes by surrey’s Dan Lawrence at New Road in an over costing 38.
‘He was in a little bit of shock when he came off, but he didn’t look overly affected by it,’ says Worcestershire head coach Alan Richardson. ‘He remained very consistent in his behaviour and attitude. He was great in his short stint with us and showed he was a very good bowler.’
Once upon a time, the mauling might have changed minds. But stokes and McCullum go with their gut. Having decided Bashir has the attributes England need if they are to prosper on thankless pitches abroad, they stuck by him. McCullum even turned Bashir’s anonymous appearance at Lord’s into a dressing-room joke, telling the players during each interval: ‘This is Bash, if you haven’t met him already.’
And after Holder hit him for six and four in successive balls on sunday evening, stokes noted: ‘The great thing about Bash is if you see him get hit over his head, he starts smiling and he’s all right. He’s got no issue whatsoever about getting hit for a four or a six. I love the way that doesn’t affect him.’
IN a typically thoughtful piece of man-management when Bashir was struggling to get a game for somerset, stokes reassured him in a 20-minute phone call that he remained England’s first-choice spinner.
Has that made things awkward with Leach, whose Test career may now consist of providing Bashir with back-up on tours of Asia, even while he keeps him out of the side at Taunton?
‘We had a chat and he was over the moon for me,’ said Bashir. ‘Leachy understandably is getting in the somerset team ahead of me. He’s played a lot more cricket and he’s a class spinner. I’ve learned a lot off him.’
Until the last session of the fourth day of the second Test, Bashir had tasted an experience familiar to plenty of spinners in this country; a passenger at Lord’s, he was easily milked on a flat Trent Bridge surface during West Indies’ first-innings 457.
If stokes were not now bowling again after knee surgery, Bashir might have been left out altogether. But it was his response to figures of two for 108 from 25 maidenless overs that will reassure England.
‘I wasn’t too happy with the way I bowled,’ he said. ‘so you’re kind of harsh on yourself at times. Bowling spin in England is pretty tough, but also you reap your rewards later on, and I’m grateful I’m 6ft 4in. The extra bounce
helps. It was nice to contribute and get over the line. It helped that it was spinning a bit towards the end, and changes of pace were quite big.’
As well as the wicket of Holder, Bashir removed Kavem Hodge for nought and Alick Athanaze for one. They had put on 175 two days earlier. The dismissal of Athanaze in particular was an off-spinner’s delight: pitching on the stumps, it turned across the left-hander and induced an edge to Root at slip.
‘He obviously showed what he could do in India with conditions in his favour,’ said Stokes, ‘but the pitch this week didn’t offer much for spin. I know a lot of spinners, inexperienced or experienced, would be very happy with the way he bowled. I don’t want it to sound like an, “I told you so” kind of thing, but it sort of is.’
Stokes is not usually a gloater, but Bashir — a novice with a first-class bowling average of 46 — is testing the theory.