Shoaib Bashir in Test cricket

England's latest Test squad has seen the emergence of Shoaib Bashir as the team's first-choice spinner, ahead of Jack Leach. With limited first-class experience, what has helped him jump the queue?  

When Shoaib Bashir was called up to England's Test squad for their tour of India earlier this year, his County Championship record for Somerset looked like this: six matches, 10 wickets and an average of 67 runs conceded per wicket. In a now well-known story, England captain Ben Stokes came across a clip on social media of Bashir bowling to Alastair Cook on his first-class debut, and sent it to Rob Key and Brendon McCullum before things "just progressed from there," in his own words.

Bashir's tour of India read; three matches, 17 wickets and an average of 33.4 runs conceded per wicket. Not spectacular or otherworldly numbers, but more than respectable for a player making his Test debut halfway across the world who also had to contend with the headache of Indian bureaucracy before entering the country.

The off-spinner was at it again, when England took on West Indies at Trent Bridge earlier this week. After a quiet first Test at Lord's (no overs bowled, and run out for a 17-ball duck), he took centre-stage in the fourth innings. Bashir's five-wicket haul to bowl England to a 241-run win made him the first spinner since Muthiah Muralidaran in 2006 to register a Test five-for in Nottingham.

Shoaib Bashir stands out (literally)

England's selection panel were reportedly struck by Bashir's height. At 6'4", he stands out among spinners as most cricketers who grow this tall are often moulded into fast bowlers from a young age. 'Release height' has become somewhat of a joke term among England fans on certain parts of social media and would almost certainly have been a more serious point of contention had Bashir's selection not paid off in spectacular fashion.

Despite the disdain in some quarters for the rationale, it is a solid one. Stokes would not have known this when he sent the Bashir clip to Key and McCullum, but the allure of his bowling doesn't come just from the fact that he is tall — it's that statistically, he is one of the truest outliers in this respect.

According to ball-tracking data collected by CricViz, Bashir releases the ball from an average height of 2.35 metres (roughly 7'8"). Only three spinners — West Indies' Suliemann Benn and Rahkeem Cornwall, and South Africa's Neil Brand — have recorded higher average release points in Test cricket.

Compare this to the spinner whose place Bashir took in the English squad this summer, Jack Leach. (For no fault of his own) Leach has a much lower release point, measured by CricViz to be 2.12 metres, nearly a foot lower than Bashir. But why does this matter so much?

For one, Bashir carries with him an element of the unknown. The height from which he bowls straightaway makes his trajectory an unfamiliar one for most opposition batters, even if they are vastly experienced. They are simply not used to a spinner almost bearing down on them from all that way up.

But this is only a starting point. If height was all that was needed to earn a spot as England's starting spinner, they'd just go out and recruit the five tallest men in England (there must be someone standing over seven feet tall).

Why pick Bashir over Jack Leach?

Bashir has a couple of other attributes that make him an attractive selection for England at this point in time. Much has been made of the pace at which he bowls, measured by CricViz to be 87.5 kph in England. Leach is not far off that, at 85.9 kph. 

The speed differential on its own is not large but combines this with the more significant difference in height, and the picture is this; England now has a finger spinner who bowls from much higher, and slightly quicker, than the incumbent.

Read more: Arshdeep Singh's red-ball credentials: A future India Test star?

Point number three in Bashir's favour is that his action naturally lends itself to overspin as opposed to Leach who, in more classical fashion, primarily puts sidespin on the ball. This is also borne out in the data; in Test matches played in England, Leach has generated more drift (movement in the air) and extracts more turn out of the wicket than Bashir.

These are both features of (a) bowling slightly slower through the air and (b) applying sidespin, which allows the ball to better grip in the surface and move laterally (i.e., spin).

The effect of overspin that Bashir puts on the ball is that he is likely to generate more bounce. This makes him a similar bowler to someone like Nathan Lyon, who relies more on overspin than sidespin. Bashir's style can also be compared to former India leggie Anil Kumble, who similarly relied more on his height, speed, and ability to get the ball to rise sharply after pitching rather than 'turning it big'.

These attributes of Bashir's make him an exciting prospect as he is likely to play most of his matches in England, where wickets do not always assist bowlers who try to genuinely spin the ball. Having what he does means he can be effective in such conditions, and he becomes doubly dangerous when playing on pitches that do assist turn.

An early trend, but a promising one

It's still very early in Bashir's career, but there are promising signs in terms of his ability against left- and right-handed batters. Two of England's main spinners over the last few years have been Leach, and Moeen Ali. As a left-arm spinner and an off-spinner, they are both significantly better bowling to right-handers and left-handers respectively.

 

Even off-spinners Nathan Lyon and R Ashwin have a preference of bowling to left-handers. Their actual numbers, of course, are far better than Bashir's simply because they are better bowlers overall.

Once again, this may just be a quirk of a small sample size as Bashir has played just five Tests. But if he improves without being significantly reliant on a certain type of batter in order to choke the opposition, he becomes that much more dangerous a weapon for his captain.

2025/26: Shoaib Bashir's Ashes?

England's line regarding Jack Leach has consistently been that the door is never closed for him. A good couple of domestic seasons (he is still preferred for Somerset over Bashir) could well put him back in the mix. Add to that the fact that despite having a solid Test record so far, Bashir's Championship one is still quite poor.

But this pick was never about the record. This was about a keen cricketing eye plucking a player from the domestic game for the potential they see in him. Inevitably, such picks also run the risk of decision-makers being more emotionally attached to such players. England will need to make sure they do not fall into this trap, at the cost of team success.    

As Key, McCullum and Stokes build towards the next Ashes series in 2025, the backing of Bashir does make sense. Like England, pitches in Australia do not always assist turn. The combination of Bashir's ability to trouble batters with pace and bounce, and some hard, bouncy surfaces Down Under means he could be key to England's prospects of reclaiming the urn.    

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