Michael Vaughan compares Shoaib Bashir to R Ashwin | Cricket News
England’s Shoaib Bashir has had an impressive outing in the fourth Test against India in Ranchi. He picked up eight wickets in the match including a five-wicket haul in the first innings. The 20-year-old has looked temperamentally sound and has displayed efficient skills in a couple of Tests he played.
Former cricketer Michael Vaughan would even go on and compare with Indian off-spinner R Ashwin. “One of the great weeks, celebrating another world-class superstar that we’ve unearthed, Shoaib Bashir. That’s what we’re celebrating. Second Test match, he eight wickets, he’s the new Ravi Ashwin, and we’ve unearthed him. So, we’re celebrating a new superstar in English cricket,” he would say on Club Prairie Fire’s YouTube channel.
Needs to get opportunities in County cricket
Both Tom Hartley and Bashir have had only a handful of experience in first-class cricket before the ongoing series. However, both have been impressive with their bowling despite their inexperience and look like long-term spin bowling prospects for England who have been struggling to find spinners for the red-ball side since Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar duo.
Both Hartley and Bashir are not first-choice spinners for their respective domestic red-ball teams. “It will be a slight frustration of ours if they weren’t given opportunities at county level,” England head Brendon McCullum said. “There’s a very real possibility that might be the case, but without wanting to dictate to counties because they have their agendas as well when you see performances as we have out of those two bowlers throughout the series, I think you’d be slightly mad if you didn’t give them more opportunities in county cricket.
“It would be nice to think they’d get plenty of opportunities so that they can improve at a quicker rate. Whether those opportunities are with counties or with England, I think we’ve just got to keep trying to get cricket into them. Whatever opportunity we can, we’ll try and give it to them because there are two guys there more than good enough for international cricket. They’re also tough characters,” he added.
