18 November 28, 2021The Sunday Times
Cricket
days at Lancashire. Moores quickly
grasped that Hameed’s mind was
locked into survival mode, blocking
balls that he should have been hitting
to the boundary. He needed to free up
and start enjoying the game again.
Was he surprised by how quickly
things fell back into place?
“Yes and no,” he says. “My focus
was on Nottinghamshire and doing
well for the club but I always knew —
and that was always communicated to
me — that the most important thing
was that I started enjoying my cricket.
Performing well for the county would
then look after itself.
“Notts just seemed a good fit. I got a
sense of sharing the same ambition
and the same values. I feel they’ve not
only created an environment for the
club to succeed but also one that pro-poses broken three years ago, or the
reason why he managed to navigate
the dark days of self-doubt in the first
place. Did he ever doubt that he could
come back again? “It was difficult at
times. When you had the sort of expe-
riences I had it is only natural you feel
those emotions, but there was always
this thing within me to not give up, to
just go one more time,” Hameed says.
“Thankfully, that allowed me to
keep pushing forward. A lot of those
emotions did come to mind, but I was
able to come out the other side.”
The turning point came with a
change of counties and the
opportunity to work
again with Peter
Moores, with whom
he had briefly dealt
in his very earliestmindful of that. I’ve been working
with the coaches in a way that will suit
me and if there’s anything that I need
to address I’ll work hard to get myself
in the best shape to do well.
“An Ashes series is probably the
biggest series in the world. It’s the one
everyone looks forward to, the one
you dream about playing in as a kid.
Being around the boys, there’s a great
vibe. Everyone’s really excited.”
Hameed has not faced Australia
home or away — all his six Tests have
come against India — and he has not
come across Cummins, Hazlewood or
Starc before, although he points
out that he had not come up
against Bumrah and co before
last summer. The first time he
faced them he scored a century for
a County Select XI at Durham in the
lead-up to the Test series.
“You watch a lot of footage of these
guys so you have a fair idea of what
their actions look like,” he says.
“Hopefully that helps when you get
to face them.”
His only taste of Australian con-
ditions before this winter was an
England Under-19 tour when he
scored 91 not out in a rain-affected
one-off Test at the Waca, a historic
venue renowned for the pace and
bounce of its surfaces.
Hameed’s quiet faith in his own
ability — and durability — is either a
consequence of the way he rehabili-
tated a batting technique that
was to all intents and pur-BACK
FROM
THE
DEPTHS
SIMON
WILDE
Cricket Correspondent
O
pening the batting in Aus-
tralia against a pace attack
spearheaded by Pat Cum-
mins and Josh Hazlewood
must be one of the sternest
challenges in cricket, but
you would not know it from
talking to Haseeb Hameed,
who is set to do just that at the Gabba
on Wednesday week. It would be easy
to mistake this for the insouciance of
youth, but given all that he has been
through he is unlikely to kid himself
that anything is easy.
He must also have an inkling that he
is following a line of harrowing
English struggles at the top of the
order in Ashes Tests: across the past
five series, home and away, the first-
wicket pair have mustered only five
half-century stands, the highest of
which was the 85 posted by Alastair
Cook and Michael Carberry at Perth in- A small mercy from the damp
squib of the first warm-up match in
Brisbane last week was that Hameed,
with 53, and Rory Burns, 39, started
with an unbroken stand of 98.
It has also been fashionable to recy-
cle claims that Hameed prefers the
front foot and has a weakness against
high pace, as though all Cummins,
Hazlewood or Mitchell Starc have to
do is turn over their arm to explode
Hameed’s stumps. This may or may
not happen but it ought to be noted
that Hameed’s average against fast
bowling has more than doubled from
20 to 41 since his move from Lancash-
ire to Nottinghamshire two years ago.
His technique has also changed
since he first played for England in
India five years ago as a teenager and
was put out of the series after three
games thanks to a badly broken finger
in Mohali.
He is aware of the scepticism but
warns against making drastic adjust-
ments that may undo a method that
has served him well — most recently in
his three comeback Tests against
India in the summer, when he scored
two fifties against a not-inconsidera-
ble pace attack led by Jasprit Bumrah.
“As a cricketer, you always look at
ways to improve and going to Austra-
lia there’s naturally more pace and
bounce in the wickets,” he says. “But
it’s finding a balance — being aware of
conditions and the type of bowling
attack you’ll face, but not neglecting
everything that you do well.
“You look at their bowling attack
and they challenge you in different
ways. Ultimately you have to play off
front and back foot to perform well in
any conditions and you need to be
After overcoming
five years in the
wilderness Haseeb
Hameed will play
his first Ashes with
a rejuvenated
outlook and an
expanded game