Jack Leach appears to be leading a slow bowling attack thin on experience for the five-Test series starting on Thursday.
On the 2012 tour of India, England’s frontline spinners — Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar — had a combined experience of 88 Tests. In 2016, it was 37. This time, it’s 36. Not much of a difference between these two tours, but insert the clause that 35 out of those 36 Tests are under Jack Leach’s name and this selection starts to make even less sense, especially when Leach hasn’t played a first-class match since last June.
Now add leg spinner Rehan Ahmed, who has played just one Test in Pakistan, off-spinner Shoaib Bashir — he made his first-class debut for Somerset in June — and slow left-arm bowler Tom Hartley, barely into his fourth County season, and this has the feel of an undercooked slow bowling attack.
There could have been some heft had Hampshire slow left-armer Liam Dawson — the leading spinner in the 2023 County season with 49 wickets at an average of 20 — been picked. But according to England men’s cricket managing director Rob Key, he wasn’t keen on touring as a backup option. “If he’s not going to play then I don’t think it’s high on his agenda to be going as essentially a replacement bowler,” Key had said after naming the squad last month.(HT)