Peter Hayter on the struggles of Haseeb Hameed
Peter Hayter takes a look at the England prospect’s struggle and argues that it’s not second season syndrome
Watching Haseeb Hameed take his mature, assured and, ultimately, physically courageous first steps for England in India last winter, two thoughts came to mind.
The first was that the youngest batsman to make his Test debut for them as an opener had so effortlessly lived up to the hyperbole which preceded his selection that he looked like he had been playing at this level for years.
The next was that if any first-season wonder was capable of avoiding second season syndrome, Hameed was it.
Granted, the Lancashire prodigy’s nineball duck in the first innings of the England Lions match against South Africa A at Canterbury continued a run of poor form since the start of the summer that has prompted even those who consider such an affliction to have been rendered a thing of the past by modern coaching techniques to wonder whether it really may be down to SSS, pure and simple.
But is Hameed’s case quite so pure and simple?
Second season syndrome, as old as organised cricket itself, is the process by which bowlers, after going at you blind first time round, have acquired enough information to sort you out next time.
On closer inspection, however, in the case of “Baby Boycott”, some observers point out that, as Hameed actually made his debut towards the end of the 2015 season, if bowlers were going to rumble him in that time-honoured fashion, it should have happened last year.
It didn’t. He became the youngest batsman to compile 1,000 runs for the club, their first to score hundreds in both innings of a Roses match and finished the summer with 1,198 runs in the Championship, including two more centuries and an England call-up for the tours to Bangladesh and India.
And that raises the question of whether the person concentrating more on his weaknesses than his strengths at the moment is Hameed himself and that he may be paying the price either for getting those priorities the wrong way round, or for striving too hard, too soon for the impossibility of perfection, or both.
In short, if the bowlers aren’t the ones finding him out, is he doing it to himself?
From the time Hameed first came to the attention of Lancashire, the Bolton-born lad united everyone who saw him in the opinion that he was going to be something special.
Good judges spoke of his ‘aura’ at the crease, the impression that he had more time than the others and, that, with a technique and temperament that would not be hurried or flustered into making unnecessary errors, he made the bowlers come to him rather than chase them.
These were the qualities that so impressed the coaches at Old Trafford that they had no hesitation in diverting him around their U19 teams straight into second team cricket.
And the then Lancashire director of cricket Ashley Giles had no second thoughts about handing him his first-class debut in August 2015, aged 18, then keeping him in the side for the rest of that season, which he ended with 257 runs in six innings at 42.83, including two halfcenturies, batting with what Paul Edwards, writing in Wisden, described as “uncoachable calmness”.
According to Giles:“People asked me why I picked him at that age… because of the way he trained, the way he looked after himself, the way he talked, technically, tactically, never mind his age, you just knew he had the credentials.”
James Anderson, whose credentials to judge, as England’s leading Test wicket-taker and Hameed’s county team-mate are impeccable, expressed similar sentiments.
Hardly renowned for issuing headline-grabbing statements if he can help it, Anderson did just that when he came up with the following comparison between England’s most recently-capped
That raises the question of whether the person concentrating more on his weaknesses than strengths is Hameed himself
Test opener and their most capped and most successful Test opener of all time, Alastair Cook. “It’s a difficult thing to say,” he started.“I know Cookie is the leading run-scorer, but I’d say he (Hameed) is a better, more technically sound opening batsman than Cook.” And while he did warn:“I don’t want to talk him up too much – he’s bound to have the worst year of his life if I do,” he then proceeded to explain in detail why he was sure that would not happen to Hameed. “Hameed’s got focus and concentration in bucket-loads and that’s what will stand him in good stead. “I played with him at Lancashire last year and you see teams throwing everything at him, short balls, trying all sorts, around the wicket everything, and he seemed to cope with everything that was thrown at him.”
For those who question whether Hameed is happy against genuine hostile pace, the easy answer is “who is?” and those who saw him given a going-over by Surrey’s Stuart Meaker at The Oval late last August agreed there was room for improvement.
With his hands down the bat handle, he appears to some a strong candidate for further finger injuries like the one that cut short his tour of India and required surgery.
But other batsmen have coped and adapted through experience and repetition, without discarding the baby with the bath water.
And a review of his form for Lancashire so far this season further suggests Hameed may be putting himself under unnecessary pressure by trying to fix other elements of a technique that aren’t actually broken. For instance, by playing at balls outside his offstump he has made a reputation out of leaving well alone.
His second innings dismissal against Somerset at Old Trafford at the end of April, when he played at a ball well outside his playing area, has been cited as a case in point.
So, is Hameed’s current poor form, which, with others pressing hard for their turn, makes a maximum of three innings in the next fortnight, against South Africa A in the current match then their 1st XI in Worcestershire next week, look uncomfortably like a trial for his place in the first Test against them starting on July 6 at Lord’s, actually down to second season syndrome or self-inflicted confusion?
On the eve of the season, Giles offered a nuanced view which, as of now, carries significant resonance. “The best players,” he asserted, “are those who make sure they stay ahead of the attempts by other good players to find and exploit their weaknesses, not so much by wholesale changes but consistent improvement.
“Anyone can fail and he is bound to have a bad trot. The key, then, is not to panic but to continue to have confidence in what you are doing and be clear where you are going.”