Middlesex Pre-Season 2 Day Friendly WHO AM I?

31/03

I nice easy one that even [insert name] will get... surely!

30/03

With a damp start forecasted, but that daily average was improved and time in the middle was again achieved.

29/03

I know it's a necessary thing because of the schedule and bright idea that April would be a good time to restart playing First Class cricket but so far this March at Trent Bridge, with all its modern drainage and covers, there has only been a average of 44.4 overs bowled per day of pre-season.

How Joe Root’s example helped penny drop for Haseeb Hameed

Nottinghamshire captain credits Peter Moores for helping change his approach to batting, with another England recall a possibility again after two prolific seasons

Simon Hughes

There are various categories of batsmen. Some are mathematicians. They analyse angles and probabilities and percentage outcomes, and calculate how to use their bat like a sort of slide rule to accumulate runs. Steve Smith would be one example, Kumar Sangakkara another, Sachin Tendulkar too at times.

Some batsmen are artists, the pitch the canvas on which to display their stylish, extravagant brush strokes, as you might say an AB de Villiers did or a Harry Brook or Jacob Bethell does now. Some are natural bullies, intimidating the bowlers with outrageous shots like Travis Head, Matthew Hayden or Viv Richards. Some are craftsmen, endlessly tinkering with their method, fine-tuning their positioning, movements and flow to perfect the art of persuading or manoeuvring the ball to the places where the fielders aren’t.

Joe Root is the ultimate craftsman, and you could say that Nottinghamshire’s Haseeb Hameed is his willing understudy. Root’s craft was natural from the start, a response to his slight frame and lack of raw power but a product of his cricketing acumen and insatiable desire. Hameed’s craft has had to be acquired.

Hameed was the second top runscorer in last season’s County Championship division one behind Dom SibleyFabio De Paola for the sunday Times

In his career’s first iteration, he was more of a grafter, preoccupied with defence. His obduracy and sound method (and early success, becoming the youngest player to reach 1,000 runs for Lancashire) earned him the nickname Baby Boycott and a Test debut. He was Alastair Cook’s tenth opening partner following the retirement of Andrew Strauss and after three Tests against India he was averaging 44 — albeit at a glacial scoring rate.

But, constipated by an obsession with technique, he ground to a halt and after a couple of very modest county seasons Lancashire’s director of cricket Paul Allott said: “Not only is he a million miles away from England, he’s hanging on by his fingertips at Lancashire.” He left the county in 2020 and joined Notts where he was reunited with Peter Moores, the coach with whom he first worked at the Lancashire academy.

He rediscovered his mojo in 2021 and was pitched back into the England side for another tilt at India and the Covid Ashes of 2021-22. A sequence of single-figure scores on that difficult trip down under proved terminal from an England point of view. But he had found a soulmate and kindred spirit in Moores, someone who never shirks hard work and hard truths, and together they worked at polishing the raw diamond.

Struggles in the 2021-22 Ashes down under ended Hameed’s most recent run in the Test teamPhilip Brown/Popperfoto via Getty Images

The turning point was a net session at Trent Bridge. “It was towards the end of Covid,” Moores says, “and I was doing a bit of work with Joe Root, throwing him a few balls. A lot of balls, slightly back of a length, fourth/fifth stump. He was doing what Joe does, steering, gliding, back-cutting those balls for runs. Brilliant.

“The following morning Haseeb came in early for practice as he usually does. We were in the same net and I was throwing those same types of deliveries to Has. And he was blocking them. And I said ‘Joe hit some of these for four yesterday. You’re not even trying to score off them’. And afterwards, Has was more positive and I think the penny dropped.

“From that moment on, he decided that was the sort of player he wanted to be. He changed his mindset from someone trying not to get out to someone trying to score runs.”

Hameed was excellent last season at working the ball into gaps on the leg side with wristy nurdles and flicksGetty images

Moores is a disciple of the fine old England player Ted Dexter’s mantra that you don’t play behind the ball, you play alongside it. What he means is you let the delivery come to you and use its properties rather than getting everything — pads, bat, body — in its way. Let it come beside you — play it late. What Dexter also said regarding footwork was that “you should bat as if standing in a bath [ie stepping forward or back] rather than a pisspot” [ie not moving your feet].

Hameed has definitely developed his game on both those fronts. Watching some of his innings last year, he was busy at the crease, excellent at working the ball into gaps on the leg side with wristy nurdles and flicks. He was stepping out to drive exquisitely through the off side when the ball was fractionally overpitched and picking up runs off the back foot with Root-esque steers and glides, playing alongside the ball, and unleashing a back-foot cuff over gully when the ball lifted a bit outside off stump. His four first-class hundreds were all relatively fluent affairs, and he went to a double century against Durham off 240 balls (and out of a total of 403 for nine) with two straight sixes.

“He has really studied the art of batting,” Moores says, “and he understands how to make runs. He knows his own game. And he’s adaptable. If you don’t bowl well he hurts you, but if you are bowling well he’ll see you off.”

The eventual result is two prolific seasons — 1,091 runs at an average of 51.95 in 2024, 1,258 runs at 66.21 in 2025 — and breaking Surrey’s monopoly of the County Championship title as Nottinghamshire captain to boot.

Hameed agrees that the work with Moores has been the catalyst in changing his approach to batting. “In particular after Australia, I made quite a conscious decision with regards to my mindset,” he says. “And I think naturally then your body finds ways of giving yourself the best chance to actually put bowlers under pressure and to score more.

“To be able to do that with someone like Mooresy who’s worked with some of the best players in the world is brilliant. And not only myself, I think he’s benefited so many people here in terms of their development in their games. That’s a massive part of why we had the success that we did last year.”

When Root had his own dip in productivity around the same Covid period, he looked at the other elite players — Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Steve Smith — to see what he could introduce into his own game. Had Hameed done the same?

“I’ve always been someone that’s thought deeply about the game and I guess admired a lot of different players over the course of my career,” he says. “There’s things that you can pick out from so many unbelievable players in the world right now. But I think the important thing is it’s got to fit your game and be authentic to your style of play. It’s got to be something that comes relatively naturally to you as well.”

Hameed lifted the County Championship trophy last season as Nottinghamshire broke Surrey’s monopolyPhilip Brown/Getty Images

He is idiosyncratic. He’s quite stiff-looking at the crease, but moves swiftly into position and swings the bat freely through his strokes, even if some of them look a little manufactured. So did some of Tendulkar’s (who Hameed grew up idolising), and he wasn’t a bad player.

So, as England’s potential fall guy Zak Crawley was pinned leg-before for a duck by Surrey’s Matt Fisher on Wednesday at Canterbury — Crawley’s feet stuck in that pisspot, as Dexter would have said — Hameed was reeling off a brisk 45 against Loughborough students before then, for once, watching his team-mates fill their boots. Has there been any contact from the England hierarchy?

“The last communication I had was a couple of years ago. The advice was to go back to county cricket and score runs,” Hameed, 29, says. “And if an opportunity was then given, like they are doing with the current crop of players, they want to back players and they want to give them a long run at it.

“That Australia tour in particular was a real tough one for all of us, for me in particular. You need a level of resilience to come back from that. The fact that I’ve been able to come back and perform for Notts and evolve as a player shows that, hopefully, I’ve still got my best years ahead of me.

“Right now the focus is very much on doing my thing for Notts. I’ve got massive responsibilities with the captaincy as well. But that ambition for England will always be there as long as I keep playing.”

The opportunity is there. Starting with a trip to Somerset next Friday, he has six games to grab it and bring some more craft back into that England batting order.

I believe Sunday gives supporters an opportunity to take a selfie with the Championship trophy...

 Squad:

Haseeb Hameed
Ben Slater
Freddie McCann

Joe Clarke

Jack Hayne

Kyle Verreynne

Lyndon James

Liam Patterson-White

Farhan Ahmed

Rob Lord

Olly Stone

Dillon Pennington

Tom Giles