Bravo Bashir! Now just keep tossing it up

Of the three young spinners who have played Test cricket for England this winter, Shoaib Bashir has impressed me the most.

Not just because he took four wickets here, but vitally he looks like a finger spinner who could do well in England and overseas in the longer term. Out of the spin trio, also comprising Tom Hartley and Rehan Ahmed, he has offered most control — something his captain Ben Stokes will require when they return home.

To be successful in all conditions requires an ability to deceive the very best players before the ball lands and that is what Graeme Swann did so well — the prime example being his dismissal of Ricky Ponting in the 2009 Edgbaston Ashes Test. Swann got the ball drifting away, dropping on the batter, and with Ponting lured into a big drive wide of off stump it spun to bowl him through the gate. It is the sort of deception Bashir needs to work on to keep improving his game.

As a spinner in England, during the first innings you are trying to hold an end. Second innings, you’re looking to bowl the opposition out, and this summer if Jack Leach is not fit and they pick just one, it will probably be Bashir.

What I love about him is a quality he shares with India’s Ravichandran Ashwin — he’s a spinner with a fast bowler’s mentality. Bashir is a competitor, feisty, and looks like he enjoys the battle of Test cricket. He received some stick on social media for showing aggression when he got Yashasvi Jaiswal out on Thursday evening. But I liked it. Yesterday, when he dismissed Devdutt Padikkal, there was a bit of a swagger to him. You need something about you to play international cricket. Like Ashwin, he’s up for the fight.

But both the Somerset man and Hartley, of Lancashire, have been positives for me, because you cannot think of a tougher cauldron to be thrown into as a young spinner. They are learning their trade on the biggest stage and have faced the most unfair of comparisons because in Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav, India are fielding some of the finest spinners of the modern game.

So fair play to these two English lads who, come day 22 of this series, were still putting in a shift. They’ve done bloody well given how little cricket they had previously played and the amount of pressure they’re under. Bashir is just 20 but there was a sign he is learning yesterday when before lunch he was a bit too quick through the air — understandably so, as he’d been battered by Jaiswal on day one whenever he tossed it up.

Rohit Sharma bashed him straight back over his head, too, at the start of play, so he went quick again, which negates the drift and drop — the assets an off-spinner needs to be most threatening.

But, after lunch, once the big-hitting top three were out, he had the confidence of going up and down again, and the drift he obtained contributed to the dismissal of Sarfaraz Khan. He then trapped Padikkal with a beauty. So what can he do to improve further? Sit down for a chat at the end of the Test match with Ashwin would be my answer, because there is no one better to speak to for a finger spinner. Shane Warne, someone I worked with a lot, was a genius and knew everything about spin bowling. Ashwin is another great student of his craft. I am sure if Bashir asks for observations on what he has seen of his own bowling, on the differences of using the new ball and old, he would offer advice.

As I say, the young man has impressed me. Now, it’s time for him to pick the brains of the master to continue his spinning education.