Dan Jones: Haseeb Hameed requires time and runs for England, not daft comparisons

Haseeb Hameed
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Dan Jones15 November 2016

‘Baby Boycott’ is a barbed compliment to pay anyone, since it implies prolific purity, technical excellence and the temperament of a mule in deep-sea diving boots.

But this is what folk are calling Haseeb Hameed, England’s latest opening partner for Alastair Cook. The 19-year-old begins his second Test in Visakhapatnam in less than 48 hours with 113 Test runs to his name. Many are talking about him ending his career with more than 10,000. Well, he has made a start. As the real Boycott would tell you, the job of the opener is about nothing if not accumulation.

Confirmation bias is a common disease among sports fans, and in the hunt for a long-term England opener, saviours have been sighted with the regularity of Old Testament prophets.

In the 53 Tests since Andrew Strauss retired, a run stretching back to November 2012, Nick Compton, Joe Root, Michael Carberry, Sam Robson, Jonathan Trott, Adam Lyth, Moeen Ali, Alex Hales, Ben Duckett and now Hameed have all been touted as the answer to the opening question: some of them because they genuinely looked good, and some because we have simply grown impatient of waiting. None lasted longer than Hales (11 Tests) and most have been thrown back on the pile, with the exceptions of Root, who has flourished in the upper middle order; Duckett, who still might; and Moeen, who continues his conversion from batsman to bowler to bowler who bats to batsman who bowls.

With each unsatisfactory experiment has come mounting desperation for a solution, which partly explains the heady reaction to Hameed’s fluent debut. He is young, technically sound and conservative enough to be reassuring without looking anti-modern or crusty.

Stylistically he sits somewhere between Ian Bell and Rahul Dravid — better comparisons, surely, than Boycott, who only hit eight sixes in his international career, a total Hameed began chasing down early when he lofted Ravindra Jadeja over his head at Rajkot on Saturday.

But hang on. Boycott? Dravid? Bell? Let us pause and let some steam from our collars. Dravid scored more than 13,000 Test runs, Boycott made more than 8,000. Bell, England’s last truly classical batsman, made 7,727. Let’s say it again: Hameed has made 113, on a road in Rajkot where six players scored centuries. Hameed’s second-innings 82 were lovely runs indeed but Test cricket is ultimately a contest of quantities and it never pays to forget it.

All of this Eeyorish sermonising is to say one thing: give Hameed time. Time to adjust, to learn, to grow and to thrive. If he is as good as we think, he won’t need too much of it.

While his liquid wrists and steely cheer suggest great things beckon, and while we are all hungry for the arrival of the next England opener to play 100 Tests with an average tickling 50, Test cricket can bleach your bones like the desert sun.

It’s not unimaginable that Hameed could be gone by the time South Africa tour England next summer:obviously, I hope that doesn’t come to pass.

Hameed undeniably has a spark worth kindling. Root, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen and Chris Woakes have all been given time to flourish, and if Hameed can prove himself good enough during the rest of the tour to India and against West Indies and South Africa next year, then attention can finally shift from finding a long-term replacement for Strauss and towards the thorny issue of unearthing successors to Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad.

In the meantime, it is in everyone’s interest, not least that of the man concerned, to enjoy Hameed for what he is: a rookie who has been given the chance to establish himself in a problem position. So let us send him good vibes, and light a candle for all those who have gone before. I think they call that mindfulness.

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