‘Counties mad if they don’t play young spinners’
Brendon McCullum admitted it would be “slightly mad” if the progress Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir have made on England’s tour of India was stymied by a lack of opportunities at county level.
The spinning duo were uncapped at the start of the trip and held modest first-class records, albeit from small sample sizes, but Hartley is the series’ leading wicket-taker with 20 dismissals in four Tests and Bashir took a maiden professional five-for in Ranchi.
But Lancashire signing Australia star Nathan Lyon this summer places a question mark over how much game time Hartley will get and Bashir is second choice at Somerset to Jack Leach, who will have surgery on a knee injury which ended his tour early and allowed the rookies to shine on the international stage.
While McCullum acknowledged Lancashire and Somerset have their own interests to consider, England’s head
Jack Draper avenged his Australian Open defeat to Tommy Paul to book a place in the last 16 of the Mexican Open.
The British number three raced through the first set against the seventh seed, winning 6-0 in just over half an hour.
But the American, who beat Draper in the second round in coach hopes Hartley, 24, and Bashir, 20, will not fade away in the months ahead.
“We’ve got to keep trying to get cricket into them,” McCullum said. “Whatever opportunity we can we’ll try and give it to them because there’s two guys there more than good enough for international cricket.
“They’re tough characters. We’ve seen both of them have big hearts. It doesn’t get any harder than it is right now and they’ve both stood up and performed so we’ve just to keep giving both of them chances.
“It will be a slight frustration of ours if they weren’t given opportunities at county level. There’s a very real possibility that might be the case. But without wanting to dictate to counties because they have their own agendas, when you see performances like we have out of those two bowlers throughout the series, I think you’d be slightly mad if you didn’t give them more opportunities in county cricket.”
Melbourne after losing their two previous meetings, proved stiffer proposition in the second set. Games remained on serve until Draper cashed in on his second break point to win 6-4.
Dan Evans could not capitalise on a fast start as he went down 6-2 5-7 6-7 to world number 17 Ben Shelton.