Alfonso Thomas, the Leicestershire head coach, was in no doubt. “I am amazed they chose [Liam] Dawson ahead of Rehan [Ahmed] for the Old Trafford Test. I believe that if England had him bowling there they would have come out on top in that game.”
Obviously, leeway must be granted for a coach promoting his own player, but the question of whether both England and India might have been better off playing a wrist spinner in that drawn fourth Test is an interesting one. Kuldeep Yadav’s absence from the India side throughout the series was certainly a mystery, and could England have selected 20-year-old Ahmed or even Calvin Harrison, the Nottinghamshire leg spinner who has spent time on loan at Northamptonshire this season?
The next game at Old Trafford after the Test match was a County Championship match that Glamorgan won, mainly thanks to the efforts of leg spinner, Mason Crane, who took six for 19 in Lancashire’s first innings and a further three wickets in the second innings. That, though, was on a pitch where the ends had been left bare, so a very different surface from the one on which the left-arm spinner Dawson was unable to take a second-innings wicket in the Test. It was, however, a surprise to see Dawson bowling Oval Invincibles’ Tawanda Muyeye on the first night of the Hundred with a lovely, slower 50mph turning ball when there had been no sign of such variation during the Test.
Ahmed is staking his claim to be the reserve spinner to Bashir for the Ashes tour this winter
STU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES
Dawson has many supporters — as I discovered when aiming some criticism his way recently — and he is a mighty fine county cricketer, but even his most fervent advocates must surely recognise that he has now jeopardised his chances of making the Ashes tour this winter — and that is where Ahmed comes in. Could he be the reserve spinner to Shoaib Bashir, who seems certain to go once his finger injury has healed?
Ahmed, who turns 21 on Wednesday, is having some season, but mainly with the bat, having made 760 championship runs at just a tick over 50, with five centuries. He began the season at No6 before being moved up to open, where he made 77 and then 100. Pushed back down to No3 he made just 13 runs in four innings before exploding with centuries in all of his past four championship matches. In some of those matches he did not bowl at all, but in his penultimate match he took 13 wickets against Derbyshire. Not since Fred Geeson in 1901 has a Leicestershire player taken 12 wickets or more and made a hundred in the same game.
Ahmed has been in fine form with the bat for Leicestershire this season
SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
“Probably the game of my life so far,” Ahmed called it, even though he has already played five Tests, all in the sub-continent, and took seven wickets on his debut against Pakistan when becoming England’s youngest Test cricketer at the age of 18 years and 126 days. He has also made 16 white-ball appearances for England.
In that maiden Test he also became England’s first “nighthawk” under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. Stuart Broad had long been ready to perform that part, which is the positive, shot-making version of the traditional defensive, protecting-the-specialist-batters nightwatchman role, but he never actually made the field to put it into action. Ahmed did, going in at No3 in Karachi, smacking a couple of fours before getting out having a bit of a heave, having volunteered for the job.
“I don’t know where I got the confidence from,” Ahmed has said to the Daily Mail. “As we were walking off I went straight to Stokesey and was like ‘let me get the pads on’. I just felt it was a good time to go in and I’ll take any opportunity I get to do that. He let me do it as well so that was cool.”
Ahmed leaves the field with the match ball after having taken 13 wickets for Leicestershire against Derbyshire. He later called it “probably the game of my life”
JOHN MALLETT/PROSPORTS/SHUTTERSTOCK
He is confident all right. It oozes from his flowing, aggressive batting, from which it is obvious from the many well-timed drives that are executed on one leg, flamingo-style, that he has learnt well from his hero, Kevin Pietersen. And it was his batting that first alerted England’s talent scouts, because at 15 they considered him to have the highest potential in the country of that age group, and that was corroborated when Ahmed made a maiden first-class century aged 18.
But his bowling has surprised, and just how much further that can improve could determine how high he can reach in the game. “I want to be a proper leg spinner and proper batsman, and there is nothing stopping me apart from myself,” he has said, but could he be the only spinner in a Test team, for example?
The late Shane Warne was impressed when watching the 13-year-old Ahmed at the Lord’s nets in 2017, saying “that’s just fantastic” on first sight of Ahmed’s action and the pace at which he delivered the ball, but the suspicion lingers that his leg spinners are still better suited to white-ball cricket, where his low trajectory can be invaluable in bowling wicket to wicket, as well as possessing a good googly to trouble the left-handers. But he does spin the ball hard and his leg-break has become more of a threat.
Ahmed, who took seven wickets on his Test debut against Pakistan, could be an all-rounder to replace Stokes one day
STU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES
Would it be too big an ask this winter if Bashir were injured or demoted? Ahmed, who will be on the Lions trip to Australia even if he does not make the main squad, is definitely a Bazball-type bowler, one who aggressively hunts for wickets. He is not one to bowl economically in the first innings of a Test in order to rest the seamers (Bashir is not either, although Dawson is), but he is one to take wickets on the last day when the pitch is worn. Bazball treasures the latter much more than the former.
Of course, it may be that Ahmed’s younger brother, the highly promising Farhan, a 17-year-old off spinner for Nottinghamshire (Rehan began in Nottinghamshire’s youth teams before moving to Leicestershire from Under-15 onwards) is England’s spinner in years to come, but it is Rehan’s possibilities as an all-rounder that are really exciting England right now. They were there for all to see when he helped his Trent Rockets side beat Northern Superchargers with a couple of wickets and a vital 31 in the Hundred on Sunday.
Bashir looks certain to be included in England’s Ashes squad once his finger injury has healed
STUART LEGGETT/ALAMY
England has a fraught history with its leg spinners (the aforementioned Crane, with just one Test cap, is an example), but could Rehan be a genuine all-rounder to replace Ben Stokes one day? It would certainly take the pressure off his leg spinners if he could bat in the top six.
One is always wary of making too much of plentiful runs in the second division, and the perennial question that afflicts all county batsmen now about competence against the short ball remains (although I recently saw Ahmed hook a nice six off Kent’s Australian Wes Agar), but Ahmed’s batting has clearly impressed some very good judges. England think he can be very special in that regard.
Maybe a first step could be to move up the order in the white-ball teams? The Ireland series in September would seem ideal for that. He did decently in this season’s Vitality Blast mainly batting at No4, but he has never batted above No8 in any of his 10 T20Is or six one-day internationals. Perhaps he should not be seen as a replacement for the peerless Adil Rashid, rather as an accompaniment and apprentice for now, who can be part of a spin duo with someone else later on.
As ever, spin alternatives for Test cricket are thin on the ground. In the same round of matches as Ahmed did, Lancashire’s left-arm spinner Tom Hartley also scored a century and took 10 wickets in the same match, while Somerset’s Jack Leach, always liked by Stokes, remains a possibility — but do not be surprised if Bashir and Ahmed are the two twirlers named in the Ashes squad.