by Rehan Ahmed missed Brendan McCullum’s call. Instead, a WhatsApp message from the Test coach told him: ‘you’ve been selected’.
It was a fitting way for Ahmed to find out about his choice to tour India. Although 19-year-old Ahmed is a leg-spinner from England, his rise has been such that his presence, in any format, is now almost taken for granted – except by the player himself. “I’m still surprised when I get selected,” he says. “It’s Test Cricket, it’s a big thing, I think about it every day. This is the hardest game ever.”
India is the land that even Shane Warne could not conquer; the highest ever leg-spinner averaged 43.11 in Tests there. “I assumed it was going to be difficult,” says Ahmed. “I will do my best. That’s all I can control. I’m really looking forward to playing Test cricket again.”
But after the five Tests in India, Ahmed will not return to the country for the Indian Premier League. With the security of a two-year England central contract, he declined the auction. Ahmed will use the period to get a well-deserved extended break, and hone a new delivery.
“The least I could do is make sure I’m fully prepared for whatever I can be for England. There’s a lot of time for IPL and stuff if I get the chance again, and if I don’t get the chance to do it, I’ll be fine with that too.
“I’ve talked to a few people – if you want a long career, you don’t want to retire too soon. My main priority is to be ready for England.”
With Warnian mischief, Ahmed explains his plans to expand his store. “I don’t like to focus on new things when I’m competing – I keep it as simple as I can. But I’m sure when I have two or three weeks off I can put my head down and work on something special.”
Of course, Warne loved to advertise such things, which were mostly a mirage: once, he even claimed to have invented a mysterious ‘disco ball’. Now, Ahmed intends to try to master one of Warne’s most famous deliveries: the flip, which slides forward directly and quickly, often scrambling under the bat.
“It could be a flip,” he reveals. “I think the flip is a nice ball, especially in T20 cricket – even Test cricket, the way it’s going at the moment. Flipper loves the ball, seeing Warney the way he used to bowl it too, the way he used to set up bats.”
Currently, there are four deliveries in Ahmed’s armoury: “leggy; slide-ish, not yet full slide; softly; top spinner.” Adil Rashid, meanwhile, has about seven different leg-spinners … Rash is just a different level.
In England’s pre-Christmas Twenty20 series in the Caribbean, the two leg-spinners, 16 years apart, bowled together.
“I talk to Rash a lot about bowling,” says Ahmed. “I don’t like being told a lot of technical things. I’m more tactical, so about pitch positions and plans. I talk about that more than I talk about footwork and forehand.
“We both understand that I’m not the bowler, I’m not the bowler – it’s a completely different thing, which makes it more interesting.”
One difference is that Ahmed can bowl faster. “I’ll try to keep my pace a bit in India: with the wicket doing what it does, less time to react is the best way to go.”
Rashid’s best advice is: “Be yourself, you’re here because of what you’ve done, not because of what I’ve done.”
When Rashid made his international debut, in 2009, England’s understanding of leg-spin was like a toddler’s understanding of Latin grammar. By educating English cricket about wrist spin, Rashid has created a more fertile climate for the new generation.
Ahmed said: “Rash went through a lot, I think, when he was younger: he was picked and then he didn’t play for England for six or seven years. And then he came back and was the best in the world. So he has made a path for us.”
This age’s focus on empowering players is ideal for a teenage leg-spinner. When Ahmed became England’s youngest-ever Test cricketer, marking the occasion with seven wickets in the match in Karachi in December 2022, Ben Stokes encouraged him to set his own pitches. “I really believe if I was in another Test team, I wouldn’t feel as comfortable,” he said.
Ahmed owes his biggest debt to his parents, however. From about “three weeks old” he played cricket with a plastic bat at the family home in Nottingham. As Ahmed’s progress continued, his parents moved him around the country. “Mum is probably the busiest of us all. Dad basically sacrificed his life for us – working, training, training with us. Nice to see he can travel and watch cricket now.
“I would go down to Surrey or up to Manchester and go out for a golden duck. When I came back home, it sometimes felt like a pointless trip, but my father always did it.”
At the age of 11, Rehan asked if he could have a console. “My dad said to me, ‘Do you want to play console games? Or do you want to play cricket?’ I wanted to play console games, but I said cricket. After that, I just fell in love with the game.
“My dad was like, ‘You can’t be the best at something if you’re not fully committed to it’.”
To this day, Ahmed does not own a console.
Instead, Ahmed joined Cavaliers and Carrington, the Nottingham Premier League club where he plays alongside his two brothers. Raheem, a 20-year-old left-armer, is “the most naturally talented of us all” and hopes to break into the professional game after two injury-ravaged years. Farhan, a spinner who is about to turn 16 – “he thinks he’s Nathan Lyon, but he doesn’t like to show it” – is now in South Africa for the Under-19 World Cup, with his father. Last year, Ahmed still found time to play two games for Cavaliers as a specialist bat with his family.
“I love cricket,” Ahmed said. “I prefer to play international cricket as well when I am playing club cricket. I think if I play international games it might feel like a job. But the fun you get from club cricket, playing with your friends, playing with a club you’ve played for years, and all the jokes – it’s all a big part of it. I would always try to be available as much as I can for the cricket club.
“I just want to be on the field with my friends and stuff – brothers, Dad, friends… The Cavaliers group is like a family.”
When bowling, Ahmed’s approach matches his club’s name. “I’m really just a freestyler – it depends on how I feel,” he said. “If I know someone is going to try to destroy me, of course I’ll try to come up with a plan. But other than that, I’m going with my gut feeling.”
He usually decides which delivery to bowl “very late, if I don’t know, this guy can’t hit this ball”. Across all three formats, with both bat and ball, Ahmed’s approach is similar: “Play your way, but be smart about it. So that’s the basic message.”
For all the claims that Ahmed will eventually be a better batsman than bowler – he has a first-class average of 32 and hopes to bat “six or seven” for England – there is none still has an impact with the bat in international cricket. . In 11 innings, Ahmed’s top score is 15.
“I don’t feel like I did what I should have done,” he said. “I’m still trying to swing every ball for a six so far. But hopefully in the India tour, if I get the chance to make it count.” Ahmed admires India’s Suryakumar Yadav, “The way he hits it is right”.
Ahmed’s belief that “technique is overrated as long as you see the ball and try to hit it” is in line with his hero, Kevin Pietersen. He admired “the way he went about everything, his aura, his presence”. In another era, “he was still playing as he wanted to play”.
Before the start of Ahmed’s Test, he told Rob Key that Pietersen was his favorite cricketer. “I got a message from him later that night, which was nice,” he said.
For all the changes in his life in the past 13 months, the core of Ahmed’s world has not changed. His Muslim faith “keeps me safe”, Ahmed said. “It’s the most important aspect of my life, that’s why I’m here. Everything is secondary – family, cricket, everything – after faith.”
When he is not traveling the world to play cricket, Ahmed still lives at home in Nottingham, staying in his childhood bedroom. “I like that room, it’s good. I have the hardest bed in the world – it’s like a rock.”
Here, as a boy, Ahmed dreamed of playing for England. Now, he dares to imagine something even better. “Hopefully we’ll have all three Ahmeds playing,” he said.
