How a WhatsApp forward and deceiving Alastair Cook earned Shoaib Bashir his Test debut

20-year-old Shoaib Bashir made his international debut for England against India in the second Test of the ongoing five-game series. Just over a few months ago, the then-19-year-old made his first-class debut for Somerset in an English County Championship match against Essex.

However, despite a subpar showing in his early matches, Bashir did not need to put his name on the scoreboard to impress England skipper Ben Stokes and make his way into the national team. Furthermore, it was just his first over in the County Championship that was enough to impress Stokes.

It was the X account of Somerset that released the video of Bashir bowling against Alastair Cook, an outstanding player of spin. However, the 19-year-old’s spell completely deceived the legendary batter.

Getting beaten twice in the over by Bashir was all that Ben Stokes needed to see to help the youngster make his way into the national team. Seeing the clip, Stokes was quick to forward it onto a WhatsApp group with head coach Brendon McCullum and ECB managing Rob Key a part of it. 

I just saw something: Stokes

Speaking of the same moment, England’s Test skipper Ben Stokes opined that he just saw the clip of Bashir bowling against Cook and wondered if the side could use someone of his talents on the India tour.

“To be perfectly honest, Abu Dhabi was the first real live look I got at Bash, The first time I saw him was on Twitter. I think the County Championship [account] put a little clip together of him bowling against Sir Alastair. I’m in a WhatsApp group with Keysy and Baz. I actually did forward the clip on and said, ‘have a look at this, this could be something we could work with on our India tour,” Stokes was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. 

“I just saw something. The height he bowled from, it was very obvious that he put a lot of action, a lot of revolutions on the ball. It was something I looked at and thought, this could be pretty good for India. I’ve played a lot of games out here. As a batter, you know what is hard to face, especially from a spin point of view,” he added.