Rehan Ahmed starred on an otherwise uninspiring day for England in Rawalpindi, with four wickets in Pakistan's first innings. However, with England on their final Test visit to Asia for three years, what does his immediate future in the side look like?
Potential is the word that's been used to describe every England debutant handed their first Test cap over the last two years. Sure, you rarely bank on a new face to be the finished article on their first go, and there's no guarantee any player will handle the pressures and the skill jump of international cricket. But England have pushed the risk vs reward nature of that to the extreme in the names they've backed to come good for them over the next few years.
There was Shoaib Bashir last winter, selected pretty much off a singular tweet from his first-class debut months before. Josh Hull this summer, practically an old hand with three more first-class games than Bashir before his debut, reaped the benefits of being 6ft 7in. There is a method to this seeming madness. England want to win in Australia next year, and they're picking the types of players they believe will help them do that. Moreover, they're picking attributes that make a good Test side, one that could go anywhere in the world and win.
Rehan's selection for the Pakistan series in 2022 was the first of these real left-field selections. Aged just 18 at the time and with three first-class games behind him, he joined a squad of players he'd been watching on TV since he was in primary school. Obviously there was nothing much for him to lose. Criticising an 18-year-old with little experience for going badly where England usually go badly is unfair, and England had already won the series by the time they picked him in the side.
Still, he was impressive. He took a five-for on debut, following two beautiful wicket-producing googlies in the first innings. An hour after leaving the field with the ball held aloft, he was sent out in the most Bazball position of them all to try and finish the series that day - the Nighthawk. In at three with England going at eights, he hopped down the track on ball one and whacked a four over long off. Regardless of the wickets, in that eight-ball 10 he showed England's management all they needed to know at that point. The swagger, the grin and just enough skill, that was what they were looking for.
The Ashes the following summer was too much of a risk. With Jack Leach injured, it was Moeen Ali who received that text rather than Rehan, who still trained with the squad ahead of the Lord's Test. While there was some white-ball action in between with mixed results, the next opportunity Rehan got was on the tour of India earlier this year, where, after Leach's second serios injury in eight months, Rehan was the de-facto senior spinner.
Six wickets across the Visakhapatnam Test kept the magic going, but reality slightly dulled some of that new-toy shine from the Pakistan series. His 11 wickets at 44 in India was a credible return for a young spinner in a country where no overseas side ever wins (bar New Zealand, perhaps). But it was Bashir who was seen as the one bankable enough from the India tour to usurp Leach for the summer.
What is Rehan's role then? He didn't play the first two matches in Pakistan this time around but evoked those memories of two years ago when he was finally brought into the game in Rawalpindi. With England and Pakistan vying for the upper hand, he enticed Mohammad Rizwan into the sweep with his second over of the day. Salman Agha was also trapped in his next over and it was a clear tactical error that Stokes didn't bring him back on until nine overs after the lunch break. It also took Rehan to finish the innings after Bashir was clobbered out of the attack.
Even after another brief dose of him, it's unlikely Rehan will be part of the New Zealand series - the last of England's Test assignments until the home summer. Instead, he'll be in the Caribbean with the white-ball squad. England won't go on another Test tour of Asia until 2027 by which time it will be five years since Rehan's Test debut. It's hard to see where his Test appearances come until then. He's probably the next cab off the rank for a long-term run if Bashir drops off the boil, now that England have gone off Tom Hartley. But whether he's the type of bowler suited to that role as the sole spinner in a side across a home summer is still unclear.
Almost two years on from his Karachi debut, Rehan will still need to bide his time for a proper role in England's Test side. Perhaps there's a wider question of how England get these 'high ceiling' players to that ceiling value. The benefit of that strategy is that there's bags of time on his side. Even in 2027, he'll still only be 22.
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