Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) [India], February 1 (ANI): England Test skipper Ben Stokes revealed how he discovered England’s uncapped off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who is a part of England’s squad for the second Test scheduled to start from Friday.
India, 1-0 down in the five-match series, will be taking on England in the second Test scheduled on Friday. Bashir will be making his international debut for England in the match.
Despite a limited track record in first-class cricket, which is 10 wickets in six appearances, Bashir impressed in pre-series training camp at Abu Dhabi. Stokes first floated the youngster’s name six months back after watching a video of him bowling to England legend Alastair Cook during his first Somerset appearance.
“To be perfectly honest, our training camp in Abu Dhabi was the first real live look I got at Bash,” Stokes said, according to Sky Sports.
“The first time I saw him was on Twitter. I think the County Championship put a little clip together of him bowling against Alastair. I just saw something. With the height he bowled from, it was very obvious that he put a lot of action, a lot of revolutions, on the ball.”
“I am in a WhatsApp group with [director of cricket] Rob Key and Baz [McCullum]. So I actually did forward the clip on and said, ‘Have a look at this, this could be something we could work with on our India tour’. It just progressed from there,” he concluded.
England squad for the second Test: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (c), Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson. (ANI)
