Former England spinner Gareth Batty looks at three young contenders: Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir
Matt Roller24-Jan-20243:16
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“If you see the ball spin in a Test match,” jokes Gareth Batty, “you get everybody in the bloomin’ team, from the physio to the bus driver, in the nets bowling spin, because everyone can do it.”That’s my concern,” he says about England on their tour of India. “They’ll be put under so much pressure, if not internally then externally, because of the expectation of success.”Batty, Surrey’s head coach, is more aware than most of the expectations on English spinners in the subcontinent. Six of the nine Tests he played during his days as an offspinner came in South Asia, the most recent in the third match of the 2016 tour, and he will represent the spinners’ union while commentating for talkSPORT on the 2024 series, which starts in Hyderabad this week.Related
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Batty’s recall in 2016, at the age of 39, aligned with the truism that spinners get better with age. England’s selection for this tour suggests that they believe otherwise: Jack Leach has been their frontline spinner for several years but is supported by three bowlers with a combined age of 63 and a single Test cap between them.”Whoever you speak to, they’ll say spinners need to have some muscle memory so that when they’re under pressure, they can deliver their stock ball and deliver their skill,” Batty says. “History has suggested that you’d be better served with a senior player – but I actually think that’s a little bit old hat, possibly.”I think England have gone, ‘We’re going to test it.’ I know Jeets [Jeetan Patel, England’s spin coach] is big on spinners bowling and getting the opportunity to get that muscle memory, but I do think you can cram as well – like people do for exams. It’s a really interesting litmus test, and it’s a brave one from England’s point of view.”Gareth Batty: “Rehan Ahmed could be that smaller or shorter version of an Anil Kumble, where he can bowl a bit straighter and get loads of bowleds and lbws”•Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty ImagesAmong England’s options is Shoaib Bashir, a 20-year-old offspinner with only ten first-class wickets to his name. Batty knows him better than most: Bashir spent his teenage years playing for Surrey’s academy, but was released at the age of 17. This summer, he played the fifth of his six first-class games, for Somerset against Batty’s side.”Because of how the system works, if they’re no longer at school, they can’t stay on the academy, and at the time, we didn’t have many places on the professional staff,” Batty recalls. “Yousef Majid, the left-arm spinner, was the guy the club went with and around that time, Bashir had a huge growth spurt, which is very difficult for young people.”It can take a while to get that movement pattern comfortable again but he’s obviously gone down to a very, very well-run club in Somerset, and he’s thrived. I’d be surprised if he finds himself playing in India, and everyone has to remember that the amount of cricket he’s played is minimal. But just bowling at England players in the nets and seeing R Ashwin up close, it’ll be a wonderful learning curve.”Bashir was unlikely to feature in the first Test even before a visa hold-up delayed his arrival, but Lancashire’s Tom Hartley is a contender to start alongside Leach. “He is direct, and bowls into the surface,” Batty says. “He’s very different to [Ravindra] Jadeja but very similar to Axar Patel. He’d be a very good opposite number to Axar.”If we’re to have any effect in India, we need Jack Leach to perform as he can do”•Getty Images”He challenges both edges if the pitch is going to spin, and he adds a bit of depth: he balances the team out quite beautifully. He’s a nice bowler and I think he’ll do well. If the pitches spin, he’ll be accurate and bowl into an area which will challenge both edges of the bat. He bowls direct into that middle-stump area.”Batty has been “surprised” to see Hartley left out by Lancashire at times – he has played 16 County Championship matches over the last three seasons – and believes that it is the result of a system that gives teams 16 points for a win and just five for a draw. “People look for a quick fix, and spin is not always that quick fix,” he says. “We’re giving too many points to an out-and-out win when the focus should be to play good cricket and for all disciplines to come into the game.”The favourite to partner Leach is Rehan Ahmed, the teenager who made his Test debut in Karachi 13 months ago. “Traditionally, fingerspin is front and centre in India, because you’re relying on the nature of sticking the ball in the same area over and over again, knowing full well that one ball will have the batter’s name on it,” Batty says.”That is harder [for] wristspinners, but Rehan has obviously got the world at his feet. He’s been given opportunities and he’s taken them, and he bats as well, which lengthens that order. His challenge will be how consistent he can be on turning surfaces in India, where control is probably front and centre, as opposed to the massive sidespin required in other parts of the world.Tom Hartley is a contender for a playing role in India, though he has been sparingly used by Lancashire in the County Championship – an outcome, Batty believes, of the current points system•Surrey CCC/Getty Images”Can he have that consistency? It’s a big ask. But the one thing that’s really positive for him is that he’s got a very good googly, so he’s bringing the tramlines in and he’s bringing the stumps and pads into play. He could be that smaller or shorter version of an Anil Kumble, where he can bowl a bit straighter and get loads of bowleds and lbws.”But it is clear that Leach will be England’s main man, tasked with leading a young spin attack on his return from a back stress fracture. “He’s a purist of the game when it comes to trying to bowl spin,” Batty says. “He’s changed his seam position from three years ago, when we saw him last in India.”He’s able to get that square spin, so he can bring the tramlines into play now as opposed to being on off stump and spinning it to slip. He can get that angle into the surface to spin it away now, which was not an easy thing for him to change: it’s a bit more palm at the batsman, as opposed to the side of the hand with the overspin.”Batty believes that England’s results in the series will correlate with Leach’s efforts. “If we’re to have any effect in India, we need him to perform as he can do,” he says. “He won’t want to be front and centre – he’s not that sort of a guy – but let’s hope his performances are, and let’s champion the fact that he’s becoming a very fine left-arm spinner.”Listen to exclusive & free coverage on talkSPORT2 or via the talkSPORT cricket YouTube channel.