Pakistan’s young fast-bowling attack lived up to the expectation in the first Test of the three-match series against England at Old Trafford in Manchester. The pace battery featuring Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Abbas, and Naseem Shah demolished English batting unit in their first innings.
The 17-year-old Naseem, who impressed everyone with his enthusiastic approach, brought England batsmen to their knees by his sheer pace. Naseem claimed one scalp by removing the highest scorer of England in the first innings, Ollie Pope.
Although, Naseem didn’t pick any other wicket, but he did bowl some nasty bouncers which troubled the English batters. One such bouncer was delivered to all-rounder Chris Woakes that broke his helmet.
It all happened in the 45th over when Naseem bowled a furious bouncer to Woakes; the batsman ducked right into it, turned his face and took his eyes off the ball, but it struck on the side of the helmet. The crack got discovered on the helmet as the health-care professionals came to check Woakes for concussion.
Here is the video:
https://twitter.com/Cric_writes7/status/1291697686400233477
Naseem picked up his maiden five-wicket haul against Sri Lanka in December 2019 and went on to claim a Test hat-trick against Bangladesh in February early this year. It made him the youngest bowler to do so in red-ball cricket.
Also, the wicket of Pope on Day 3 made him the third-youngest Pakistani bowler to claim a wicket on English soil in the longest format of the game.
Youngest Pakistani to take a wicket in England (Tests)
- 16y 353d – Khalid Hasan in 1954
- 17y 72d – Ata-ur-Rahman in 1991
- 17y 174d – Naseem Shah in 2020 *
