India versus England: How Shoaib Bashir foxed Indian batsmen

Yashasvi Jaiswal stared at a zigzagging crack. From here the ball had shot into the under-side of his bat and crashed onto the stumps. A few metres away, his terminator Shoaib Bashir could not hold his joy back. He roared and leapt into the embrace of his joyful colleagues. Bashir had dismissed the prickliest thorn in his country’s flesh in this series, Jaiswal.

The Indian opener was his fourth victim of the afternoon, but the most precious in his scalp-list.

Either side of his resistance, India would wilt, and eventually settle for 219/7, 134 runs adrift of England’s total at stumps on Day Two.

He has already pounded and grounded them for 618 runs and racked up a pair of double hundreds. Here, he, like in Visakhapatnam and Ranchi, seemed to hurt them and drag India out of the mess. And then struck Bashir, the twenty-year-old parachuted to Test cricket just because Ben Stokes happened to watch a clip of Bashir bowling to Alastair Cook on Twitter two months ago.

Bashir breaks the crucial partnership between Gill and Jaiswal! 🥲 #INDvENG #IDFCFirstBankTestSeries #BazBowled #JioCinemaSports pic.twitter.com/hCKcWdJq5A

— JioCinema (@JioCinema) February 24, 2024

He forwarded the video to Brendon McCullum and Robert Key, and the six-first-class game old Bashir, with an astronomical average of 61, was tucked into the squad. “Abu Dhabi was the first time we had a look at him, and we were quite impressed,” Stokes would say.

This was another instance of Stokes and Co trusting instincts than numbers. Picking the perfect horse for the course. His height and release points, Stokes reasoned before the game, would torment India’s batsmen.

As did his speed in cajoling the devils out of the dozing surface. So even if he had endured an expensive outing in Visakhapatnam, he was not flushed into the wilderness. Instinct would defeat numbers, persistence would beat impatience, as Bashir ran India ragged.

Several pedigreed overseas bowlers have struggled to befriend the pitches. If only bowling was as easy as pounding the ball on a specific spot, and letting the ball act on its whim. Bashir processed the nature of the pitch, he configured the suitable length and the incisive line. Then he simply brought his tricks into play, with a rustic exuberance.

Bash has two! 🤩

Shubman Gill and Rajat Patidar ❌

Match Centre: https://t.co/B58xShTQq5

🇮🇳 #INDvENG 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 #EnglandCricket pic.twitter.com/2amVrI4u9K

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) February 24, 2024

Bowling too full, where yawning cracks winked at him, would invite boundaries. Besides, he is not someone who looks to beat batsmen in the air with flight and loop. He would occasionally bowl full, but in the larger scheme of mixing up his lengths. He largely bowled on the shorter side of the good-length band. It’s his default length. Most tall bowlers tend to bowl a yard shorter than shorter bowlers. For this reason perhaps, batsmen are inclined to play them on the back-foot, looking to ride the bounce and work it on the on-side.

It’s this preconception that, to an extent, undid Jaiswal too. He was glued to his back-foot after reading the length, thinking he could bunt the ball through the off-side. But the ball kept low. The pitch played its part in the dismissal, then so did Bashir.

Batsmen’s folly

It’s the perfect length, where a batsman is unsure whether to go forward or back. Still, twinkled-toed batsmen would judge the length and readjust accordingly. But there are not too many of those throwbacks in this Indian side. Most of them were late and reactive. It’s his length that deceived Shubman Gill and Rajat Patidar that washed their minds with doubt, that made them either hang back and work it on the leg-side with the turn, or just plonk the front-foot and defend. Bashir would repeatedly hit the same spot. The precision is unusual to spot in a rookie, more so in a 32-over spell on the trot. Bashir, though, did. The shift might have broken his back; then he broke India’s back too.

But it was not length alone that foxed the batsmen. At this level, batsmen would figure out such repetitive patterns. He would interchange it, bowl some slightly shorter and some others marginally fuller. The line too was impeccable, hitting the spot just outside the off-stump and breaking away. The extra speed meant the ball would skid more than it did from India’s spinners.

A wee bit wider, batsmen could leave, a fraction into their body, they could maneuver him through the leg-side. Then, he would bring turn into play. The over-spun ball befuddled Jadeja, into an ugly stab; the side-spun outwitted Patidar. Bashir, thus, excites on so many levels, with his shrewdness and repertoire, with his grit and heart too. Joe Root was impressed: “Shoaib is a great young lad to have in the group. He’s got a great character, great sense of humour and huge ability and skill. Great to see him keep coming and asking a lot of questions.”

His day had begun with an attempted piece of humour from Sarfraz Khan, who when fielding at short leg would yelp: “Isko kuch nahin aata hain. Hindi bhi (Hindi knows nothing, even Hindi).” He got out soon after, but the taunt clearly didn’t age well.

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