A daunting examination of England’s young thrusters commences on Tuesday in Dubai. For most of the team a new experience awaits: a Test match in the dust and heat of the Middle East, where they will be confronted with bowlers and a surface with which they are dangerously unfamiliar.
There will be the usual intense scrutiny, not so much from the stands where empty sun-drenched seats will outnumber the spectators, but from the TV pictures, which can spot panic in the eyes from 100 yards. The examination may be at its most severe when Yasir Shah, the 29-year-old Pakistan leg-spinner, has the ball in his hands.
This will be a fascinating voyage of discovery for England followers. Alastair Cook, Joe Root and Ian Bell have shown they have the capacity to cope in alien conditions; they have done so in the past but what about the rest, who are prone to deliver feast or famine? All – apart from James Taylor, who may yet be squeezed into the final XI – are natural aggressors. They cannot and should not overhaul their approach to batting. But can they find the right balance of aggression and discretion against a high-quality spin attack?
Shah poses the greatest threat. In 10 Test matches he already has 61 victims. He took 50 wickets faster than any other Pakistan bowler in history amid formidable competition. He is a delight to watch –except perhaps from a distance of 20 yards.
In many ways Shah is an old-fashioned, classical bowler. His method has never been a source of scrutiny for the university boffins and their measuring devices, which try to confirm what is or is not legal in the 21st century. Shah’s action is pure in the manner of the great leg-spinners of the past, such as Shane Warne, whom he watched as a kid and thereby found an inspiration, and his great Pakistan predecessor, Abdul Qadir.
The ball fizzes out of the back of his hand; the leg-spinner turns and bounces, which accounts for so many left-handed batsmen being caught at short-leg; he has the googly to keep batsmen honest and guessing and he bowls at such a pace that it is far from straightforward for batsmen to advance down the wicket against him.
Traditionally English batsmen struggle against this type of bowling, which is not surprising as it is so rarely present when young players are evolving in this country. Indeed they often find wrist-spinners as indecipherable as the scorecards emanating from England’s warm-up activities in the UAE, which hardly qualify as cricket matches since batsmen have kept being resurrected after dismissal.
The best leg-spinners – and it seems as if Shah is one of them – test the minds as much as the reflexes of batsmen; they can induce paranoia and fear just like the fastest of bowlers.
Sometimes drip-drip humiliation can be as painful as a blow to the body from a ball travelling at over 90mph. Some of England’s young players – such as Ben Stokes and even Jos Buttler – may currently prefer the physical threat posed by pacemen.
The challenge is to put the pressure back in the hands of the bowler and it is interesting to hear how Mahela Jayawardene, a batting adviser for England on this tour, has pointed out the vulnerability of Shah if he is successfully attacked early in his spell. But that is quite a big and interesting “if”.
Jayawardene is still probably more adept at undermining a spinner early in his spell than most of the batsmen he has been enlisted to help.
