Two days of steady rain prevented Haseeb Hameed adding to the composed, unbeaten 77 he made against Hampshire but the Lancashire opener is determined to focus on what he can learn from his struggle of a summer, rather than on an immediate England recall. This was, after all, his first half-century in 21 innings dating back to November.
“You hear a lot of successful sportspeople say that these tough times make you a better cricketer and a better person, and I feel like I have developed a lot not only as a player but as a person as well this season,” said the 20-year-old. who was forced to fly home from England’s tour of India in November, after an impressive start, with a broken finger. “Hopefully I can look back on the last few months and say ‘you know what, this is what made me a better player’ than if things had just gone my way from the word go.”
Asked to what extent he was eyeing a return to England’s Test side, Hameed said: “No extent – I’m just focused on trying to perform well for Lancashire right now. At the same time I’m hopeful and confident that if I can do that for Lancashire then further honours will come but there’s a process for getting there. Everyone wants to play for England and that’s definitely my ambition and aim to get back there as soon as possible. But there’s a process and for me it’s about scoring runs for Lancashire now and hopefully that call will come.”
Hameed’s innings – which began with his side 75 behind and ended with them 239 ahead and in control – got better as it went on and was watched by the England selector James Whitaker. Hameed took 20 balls to get off the mark and admitted the rapid progress of his opening partner, Alex Davies (when he fell for 97 Hameed had 17), helped him settle; by the close he had batted for more than five hours and was driving well through cover and down the ground. His leaving looked in order and his frustrating dalliance with chasing wide balls, as he had in the first innings, was absent.
Hameed admitted it would be quite easy to blame playing white-ball cricket for Lancashire for the first time for his decline in red-ball form, but he is determined “to develop and learn”. The break from Championship cricket for the T20 Blast, which he did not play in, provided the opportunity to work with his father, Ismail, and he said a net with Mark Ramprakash during England’s fourth Test at Old Trafford boosted his confidence, too.
“I was quite determined to put what’s happened in the last few months to one side and approach it as a season of two halves, because I’ve had a three-week gap, the opportunity to go away and work on my game and approach this half of the season positively. That second innings I gave myself the best chance to succeed and was determined to make it difficult for them to get me out, to go back to basics and thankfully I did that.
“I was happy – the longer I spent out in the middle the better I felt. I didn’t overthink things too much, I just focused on the things that I do well, the things that I did in the past – that one ball focus, each ball as it comes.
“When you have had success you sometimes don’t look at why you have had success, and I think maybe times like this will allow me to focus on what allowed me to be successful and it becomes a conscious thing you can monitor. If I can keep things simple and not look too far ahead and take games one at a time and perform to my best, then I can finish the season off well.”
While Hameed said he did not doubt myself during his poor run, there was now a sense of relief. “It was nice to get that confidence and that feeling of having scored runs again. That’s the main thing. When you haven’t tasted success for a while sometimes you can get a little bit uncomfortable. You are always optimistic that the work you put in will come to fruition,” he said. “This year it has taken longer for this to happen.”
