By Richard Edwards
He may have missed out in Chittagong, but there will be a warm glow of satisfaction spreading from Bolton to Manchester when Haseeb Hameed finally becomes England’s first teenage cricketer since Ben Hollioake strode onto the international stage to tackle Australia back in 1997.
Before Hollioake’s England bow you have to go back to 1949 to find a time when the national side last trusted someone yet to turn 20 in the form of Brian Close.
Close and Hollioake, who died tragically in a car crash at the age of just 24 in 2002, would go on to make 24 Test appearances between them.
Speak to the man who nurtured Hameed’s talent throughout his time at Bolton School, though, and you get the sense that there would be widespread surprise if Hameed didn’t comfortably surpass that figure.
“You always knew he was a special talent, but you can never say if a player was going to make it as a professional cricketer, let alone play for England,” Andy Compton, head of cricket at Bolton, tells The Cricket Paper.
“Haseeb certainly couldn’t have done any more to achieve that goal though. If he didn’t make that step-up then you had to start seriously questioning who could.”
Compton oversaw one of the school’s most successful year-groups, with the Lancashire opener playing in the same team as Leicester new boy Callum Parkinson and his twin brother, Lancashire spinner, Matt.
With that trio in their side, the school were crowned national under-15 T20 champions back in 2012, beating Croydon school Whitgift by 10 wickets at Arundel Castle.
Tied down by Matt, who took 4-17 from his four overs, and helped to victory by Callum, who scored 41, and Hameed, who clubbed 83, Bolton travelled north in the knowledge that their golden generation had secured a deserved piece of silverware.
“We were county champions, too,” says Compton. “I’ve been down a couple of times to Old Trafford this season to watch him and Matt play. There was that amazing day in June when Lancashire played Warwickshire – Matt took five wickets on his debut and then Hameed ended the day 81 not out. It couldn’t have been a better day to see two old Bolton school lads performing for Lancashire.”
Both the Parkinson boys and Compton himself will be watching Hameed’s England debut when it does come, potentially as early as next week in Dhaka, although a lack of Sky Sports in the Bolton School common room will ensure that radios will be switched firmly to Test Match Special or ball-by-ball updates elsewhere as the 19-year-old attempts to make a place at the top of the England order his own.
That he deserves the call-up is not in doubt after a sensational season for Lancashire and his almost limitless appetite for hard work during his younger days.
“You knew he was a special player and had every chance of becoming a professional cricketer. As time wore on, you felt that because he had risen to the challenge at every different level through the years, he could go on,” says Compton. “The sky was very much the limit and England was a possibility. There’s an awful lot that goes into making a Test cricketer, though, and you can kind of control certain elements, like the batting, but it’s a case of the other things going along with that.
“He was always quite a mature lad, he had quite a wise head on young shoulders. He was quite confident in his own game – he knew what to do and he invariably did it.”
Hameed’s studious approach to batting, eschewing risk in the early part of his innings and then broadening his array of strokes, as witnessed at Lancashire this season, should ensure that he makes another step-up look comparatively easy this winter.
He certainly has the perfect role model at the top of the order in Alastair Cook, who yesterday broke the record for the most capped player in English history.
And if he does score as prodigiously at Test level as in the County Championship when he’s given the chance, then England might finally have re-found a winning combination at the top of the order. And if his school days tell us anything, it’s that Hameed is unlikely to let success go to his head.
“While he was at school he was pretty well grounded,” says Compton. “He had a very supportive family who have obviously made a lot of sacrifices to support him to get where he is. It’s obviously pleasing for them as a family that he’s reaping the rewards of all the hard work he has put in.”
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, October 21 2016
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