Shoaib Bashir is improving and doing exactly what Ben Stokes wants

Telegraph

6 days ago

It is the most sacred taboo in Test cricket. When the bowling side comes off the field at an interval, the fielders must always wait for the batsmen to cross the boundary first. Then the fielding captain follows, his players bringing up the rear.
The tea interval on day four of the opening Test gave us an illustration of how sacred this taboo is. India's batsmen walked off to take tea in their dressing room, or perhaps it was chai prepared by their very own chef? But the England fielders could not follow. Their captain Ben Stokes was still 20 yards away, on the field, talking busily to his 21-year-old spinner Shoaib Bashir.
We can deduce from three facts that what Stokes was giving Bashir was not an earful so much as encouragement. Firstly, Bashir has basically been Stokes' pet project from the start, the player whom he personally picked from nowhere almost two years ago, with a view to becoming England's answer to Nathan Lyon in this winter's Ashes. Secondly, and more immediately, Stokes kept Bashir going for a couple more overs after the tea interval, until the second ball was available, having bowled him from the Football Stand End all afternoon while Rishabh Pant was firing on every cylinder.
To concede only four runs an over, against Indian batsmen, on a ground that has favoured seamers, with a fast outfield, in a helpful but gusty crosswind, has to be judged a decent six-out-of-10 effort for a senior spinner, seven out of 10 for a rookie. It was no field day, like the one Bashir enjoyed against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge, yet he kept England in this game until the second new ball worked its less-subtle charms and kept their target within range.
Bashir bowled 46 balls at Pant. How many were dots? Almost two-thirds: Pant did not score off 28 of them. A theory being aired is that India's batsmen are toying with Bashir, even keeping him on, deliberately not hitting him out of the attack, so that they can carry on milking him. I would agree that India's main batsmen were at little risk of being dismissed by Bashir, but they did not rein themselves in intentionally. Had he bowled dross, India would have dispatched it, as they did when Joe Root also tried his hand at off-spin and was hit for four, six (a tracer-bullet Pant fired over long-off) and fours off three consecutive balls.
Pant did not hurtle through his 90s – he did not want to get out in them for the eighth time. He was intent on reaching his astonishing landmark, of two centuries in one Test, with singles and minimal risk. It would be no surprise if Stokes complimented Bashir on his resilience under Pant's fire as they held their conversation on the field before tea: Pant's two sixes off Bashir, whacked over long-on, occurred when Stokes gave him no fielder there. Pant, conceivably, might not have taken up the challenge if there had been a man there.
Bashir then took the brilliant wicketkeeper-batsman's wicket, Zak Crawley catching the Indian maestro at long-on, reward for the off-spinner's perseverance. Bashir could even claim to have dismissed Pant twice in this match as Jamie Smith missed a standard stumping in India's first innings.
Shoaib Bashir dismisses Rishabh Pant for 118 🏏
We won't forget his innings in a hurry 👏 pic.twitter.com/dNhBH20Wtd
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 23, 2025
India's spinner Ravindra Jadeja has not taken a wicket yet in this game, while back in the 2019 Ashes Test here, Lyon, with plenty of runs to play with, took only two scalps in England's second innings, in addition to the most famous of all run-out misses.
This summer Bashir has distinctly improved, by straightening his run-up and getting closer to the stumps, by getting more drift away from right-handers and keeping a more consistent line instead of drifting down the leg side. Long-hops and full-tosses have become a rarity, unlike last winter and summer.
The third piece of evidence that Bashir in India's second innings achieved what his captain asked of him? Stokes brought him back on after Josh Tongue and Chris Woakes had all but run through India's lower order with the second new ball. Bashir immediately dismissed Prasidh Krishna with the sort of slog that used to characterise all No 11s, further reward for his effort.