Once again Shoaib Bashir excelled in an England shirt where he has struggled elsewhere, the 21-year-old taking three of the 11 Zimbabwe wickets to fall at Trent Bridge – more than he managed across three matches for Glamorgan in this year’s County Championship – to become the youngest player to claim 50 Test scalps for his country.
So far 54% of the deliveries in Bashir’s first-class career have been sent down in a senior England shirt, leading to 72% of his wickets. “It’s different times of year, different opposition, batters play you differently,” Bashir said of his comparative success in internationals. “I walk into this England team and I feel 10ft tall because of the backing I get, and that makes a massive difference. I feel like I’m very well backed here. I’m well backed in county cricket as well, but I feel like England cricket is my happy place.”
Bashir was briefly forced to leave the field after an unsuccessful attempt to take a sharp catching chance off his own bowling resulted in him splitting a fingernail, the main impact – beyond that of ball on finger – being that while being treated he completely missed Ben Stokes’ short but outstanding spell of 3.2 overs, two of them maidens, yielding two wickets. “I didn’t see it but I heard about it – whenever he gets the ball or walks out to bat you know something’s going to happen, so you need to have your eyes on the cricket.”
England ended the day with a 270-run lead and Zimbabwe, following on, two wickets down in their second innings. That the match is as close as it is is largely down to an outstanding contribution from another 21-year-old, the opener Brian Bennett. “To be honest I didn’t know much about him,” Bashir admitted, “but I think the way he was playing, we knew he was a very good player.”
Bennett said he was inspired by seeing Thursday’s centurions being added to the honours board as he came into the ground before the start of play. “I saw them putting up their names so I thought it would be nice to be on there as well,” he said. “And a few hours later my name’s up there. What a feeling. To do it against England in England, with a full crowd and lots of Zimbabweans there as well as my family, it’s going to take something to beat this one.”
