by Which three young spinners do England have? Or when they return home in mid-March with sore feet and fingers after all their winter work, will they stick?
Tom Hartley will have a T20 white ball and a First assignment, a very valuable experience for him as he learns how to open the Test bowling with fire. It could even give him more than three Championship games next season under Lancashire’s enlightened new coach Dale Benkenstein.
Rehan Ahmed is a sure-fire Leicestershire all-forward after their main target Callum Parkinson moved to Durham. But will Shoaib Bashir get a game at Somerset? Probably only when Jack Leach is representing England.
There should, of course, be a few ‘A’ Tests every summer where these spinners could cut more teeth. The BCE has always been very good at organizing ‘A’ trials abroad for their Lions in recent winters, but there has never been room in the calendar – and the agreement of the counties – to do such events at home again.
And all three of them deserve all the encouragement. Yes, they were too much in the morning session of the third day, when none of them could back up the fatigue of James Anderson and Shubman Gill running their ages. Hartley initially looked emotionally drained after Hyderabad when he took 10 wickets (never mind his run out); and Bashir also looked tired after clocking 38 balls in India’s first innings, his previous highest haul of 30 balls for Somerset. But they took India’s last eight wickets, with just 63 years between the three of them.
We sympathize with a young batsman, perhaps a T20 specialist, who is thrown into the deep end of Test cricket – and with most of the West Indian batsmen who have to enter Test cricket with a first-class record behind them. But we insist on giving the smallest possible apprenticeship to England’s young spinners.
They have so much to learn about the game and about themselves. They have to learn how to bowl on the wicket, right and left, with new and old ball, and above all to judge how fast each pitch can be bowled. Meanwhile they have to steel their body and fingers for long periods, know their actions and release points, and work on their different types of delivery. A training camp in Abu Dhabi is not enough.
We don’t need to go back to the “good old days”, but it is interesting to recall what they used to offer. Until 1958 almost half the counties fielded in the second XI team in the Minor County Championship. In 1959 the Second XI competition was introduced, and half a dozen of the wealthier counties – notably Northamptonshire which was turning to football pools – fielded teams in both competitions. The under-the-radar young spinner was not there.
Brian or “Bomber” Wells, Gloucestershire’s apprentice off-spinner, bowled 456 balls in the second championship XI in 1959, taking 87 wickets at nine runs each. You could argue that it was too easy, but he didn’t lack confidence after that. Norman Gifford was learning to be an English left-arm spinner bowling 369.4 overs for Worcestershire Seconds (43 wickets at 19). Jack Birkenshaw, the future England all-rounder, took 26 wickets at 13 in the 1960 Minor Counties championship – and remains the English spin guru.
No one can change the past schedule that affects the county championship to April and September – no one, that is, unless the ECB wants to encourage a twist. But even then the counties can take a leaf out of the Hyderabad grounder’s book: he raked and roughed both ends, ie the spinner’s length.
When former England captain Ray Illingworth led Leicestershire to their first championship in 1975, his Grace Road man did the same. If the pitch is rolled in the middle to give the bowlers the speed to bounce and carry, it is logical that spinners would also be helped. But the ECB has tut-tutted points and docked Northamptonshire and Somerset for trying it.
Pristine is a terrible word in the context of championship cricket, only cosmetic. Parks should not just be a green carpet. To promote a balance between pace and spin (instead of the spinners being restricted to one-fifth of the championship wickets), used pitches should be mandatory, even at the start of the season, after practice matches have been staged.
It’s not just the spinners themselves who need expertise. England’s slippage for spin in this Test tended to the comic, Joe Root in his position then Zak Crawley barely got a hand on a direct chance. While Ben Foakes has been world class in this Test, young keepers also need coaching. Championship cricket will be a richer, more entertaining and more entertaining sport if the likes of England’s three rookie spinners are given their due.
