Why Bazball’s pet undertaking Shoaib Bashir has been ditched: The mediocre numbers, the Will Jacks issue, the detrimental impact consultants say spinner is having on Ben Stokes… and why purpose counties will not contact him

Shoaib Bashir’s Test career is far from over – but it is certainly on hold. And for most of the past two years, that has not been England’s plan.

When Ben Stokes was asked on Monday whether the decision to pick Will Jacks instead for the crucial third Test at Adelaide was because of his greater ability with the bat, the England captain answered as if he had been asked a different question.

‘A little bit of both,’ he said, before praising Jacks’s all-round contribution at Brisbane. It felt like a Freudian slip: not only do England fancy the Surrey man’s runs at No 8, a stance vindicated by his fighting 41 in the second innings at the Gabba, they have apparently concluded his off-breaks are more likely than Bashir’s to trouble Australia.

While the hosts welcomed back Nathan Lyon, an off-spinner with 562 Test wickets to his name, his standing buttressed by a pre-match induction into Adelaide Oval’s ‘Avenue of Honour’, England’s supposed No 1 spinner has been cast adrift in the very series for which he had been groomed. It is every bit as bad as it looks.

Bashir’s head may not have stopped spinning ever since he was chosen at the age of 20 to tour India in early 2024, in part because of grainy Twitter footage of him bowling to Alastair Cook in the County Championship.

If that struck some as Bazball being too clever by half, then five-fors at Ranchi and Dharamshala kept critics at bay. When Bashir wrapped up West Indies’ second innings at Trent Bridge that summer with five for 41, excitement was expressed about his potential, and column inches devoted to his dismissal of Jason Holder, bowled through the gate in time-honoured fashion.

Shoaib Bashir will not play in the third Ashes Test at Adelaide – where it is expected to turn – as the spinner’s decline continues     

Bashir has been searching for form in the nets but his performance in the warm-up game before the series did little to convince Ben Stokes he is ready for the Ashes challenge 

But he has added only one haul of five or more wickets to his Test CV – against lowly Zimbabwe in Nottingham earlier this year – allowing scrutiny to grow and doubts to fester.

A memorable moment came against India at Lord’s in July, when he shrugged off a broken finger to dismiss last man Mohammed Siraj and secure a nailbiting 22-run win. 

Yet Bashir’s headlong hurtle into the Lord’s outfield, pursued by grateful team-mates, remains his most recent deed in an England shirt. For now, his record is marooned in mediocrity: 68 Test wickets at 39, with an economy rate of 3.78, reflecting neither incision nor control.

The talk here in Australia has become not so much ‘How is Bash bowling?’ as ‘How is Bash?’ For the last two days, Stokes has sounded like his therapist, while admitting things haven’t turned out as planned. 

‘It’s obviously disappointing for Bash not to get the opportunity later on in the series where we thought he was going to,’ he said on Tuesday. ‘But, yeah, we didn’t think we’d be in the situation of 2–0 down after two and needing to win three.

‘We’ve had to make tough decisions before the series, and we will continue to make tough decisions if we feel like that’s what’s going to give us the best chance of winning a game.’

For now, Stokes is sticking to the line that Bashir remains England’s first-choice spinner, yet that position is collapsing under the weight of reality. And there are many on the county circuit who have been itching to say: ‘We told you so.’

Bashir is now in the curious position of possessing an ECB central contract (worth, in his case, not far off £250,000) but no county deal, having been released by Somerset. In 2024, he was loaned to Worcestershire for a game, and took two for 162 against Surrey, with Dan Lawrence carting him for 38 in an over.

Last summer, he managed two wickets at 152 each for Glamorgan, as whispers circulated that no one at Cardiff really wanted him. There have been attempts to fix him up elsewhere, including at Warwickshire and Essex. Nothing has paid off. 

But the domestic game’s reluctance to get involved in what they regard as one of Bazball’s pet projects reflects a broader truth: Bashir is a single-skill cricketer who plays only one format of the game. 

Worse, county pitches barely turn. He has nowhere to hone his trade, nowhere other than the England setup to be told he’s any good. Bashir has the peculiar statistical ‘honour’ of being a far better performer in Tests than the county game, where he averages an eye-popping 89.57 with the ball.

His two matches out here, bowling for both sides during England’s practice match against the Lions, then for the Lions against Australia A, have yielded figures of 49–2–266–2. Plainly, the management have lost faith. If Bashir plays at all in this series, there is a good chance it won’t be while the Ashes are at stake.

A high point came against India at Lord’s in July, when Bashir shrugged off a broken hand to dismiss Mohammed Siraj and secure a 22-run win – his last act in an England shirt to date

The management have lost faith in Bashir. If he plays at all in this series, there is a good chance it won’t be while the Ashes are at stake

It is often the case that a cricketer’s stature grows in inverse proportion to the fortunes of the team who have ditched him. But his absence has rendered external judgment no kinder.

The former England fast bowler Steve Harmison depicted him as an unaffordable luxury. ‘Ben Stokes has got a lot on his plate, and I don’t think he needs Shoaib Bashir playing, because it affects his game,’ he told talkSPORT. ‘England need Ben Stokes: they don’t need someone standing at mid-on and mid-off basically doing everything but letting go of the ball.’

England have defended their promotion of Bashir as a necessary response to county cricket’s inability to produce Test-class spinners. Now, confronted by the brutality of an Ashes tour, they have blinked, placing pragmatism before idealism and preferring a more part-time spinner whose 58 first-class matches have brought 50 wickets at 42.

All cricket captains have a plan until Australia punch them in the face. Bashir arrived here without a county. Unless something drastic happens, he will leave wondering whether he still has a country.