The second ball Liam Dawson faced in Test cricket crashed onto the front of his helmet. He recovered from Ishant Sharma’s blow at Chepauk in the final Test of a dead rubber in 2016, he rallied, registered an unbeaten 66, and was taking questions from the media at the end of the day. “Test cricket moves really fast,” he said about his composed knock after the helmet-crasher.
In the subsequent years, the left-arm spin bowling allrounder would learn that Test cricket moved slowly for him. In the next eight months, he played two Tests. But for a cruel late twist of fate, he would play his fourth in Old Trafford on Wednesday, eight years post his last Test, after missing a century of Tests in the interlude, hoping, losing hope, waiting and once giving up the wait. The story of Dawson is what happened between Nottingham 2017 and Old Trafford 2025.
Last year, ECB managing director Robert Key sought his availability for the five-Test tour to India. He refused because Key could not confirm him an automatic spot in the side, and he said he was too tired of carrying drinks. In England’s golden era of white-ball cricket, the period from 2019 to 2022 when they raised both the short-form World Cups, he was the most familiar drinks-man. He did not bowl a single ball in the 2019 World Cup, but has a medal, which he gifted his son. He has souvenirs and memories of the 2021 T20 World Cup triumph too, where he was a reserve. He has World Cup winning medals in his attic but not a game to show for.
He was not merely tired of ferrying drinks and being the nearly man, but he was earning more from the franchise league circuit. Sixteen franchises nudge each other on his resume, from Chittagong Viking to Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Peshawar Stars to Dhanmondi Sports Club.
“I am 33 now. I am very realistic that I am not always going to play for England. The game is changing massively and everybody that is involved in the game understands that. Financially it is something at my age that I will have to consider,” he contextualised his franchise-allegiances when turning down England’s offers at a press conference soon after.
The tour had coincided with South Africa’s SA20, worth around £150,000, which he would have to relinquish. He was a non-contracted player with England, so would have mustered a maximum of £120,000, if he played every game. It was simple financial prioritisation. Besides, he felt liberated, binning the Test dream. “I don’t think about playing for England at all now. I think that does help and that’s how I’ll continue to play my cricket,” he would say. He had earlier snubbed a white-ball tour to Pakistan for the Dhaka League. He had reconciled to the wretched fate of his international career that had more stops than starts.
But runs kept flowing from his bat (956 at 59.75 60 last season) and wickets (54 at 25.14) kept tumbling from his deliveries that England could no longer ignore him. When the call came, he could not refuse England either. He reciprocated what would potentially be his last shot at Test redemption, a sizzle before the sunset, a month after his T20 comeback in June. He was so impressive in his white-ball return that former captain Nasser Hussain wanted him to be the first choice spinner in the T20 World Cup.
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Before the subcontinent adventure next year, he has business at Old Trafford and Oval, historically two spin-friendliest venues in England. He is different from Bashir in every way. He is shorter, standing at five eight, and the coaches at Hampshire remodelled him from a left-arm seamer to spinner. He walks to the wicket, much like his idol and the man he took over the spin-bowling mantle from, Shane Warne, for his county. Resultantly, he releases from a modest height, as compared to Bashir, who was six feet four inches. The action is more round-arm, and at release his bowling arm is beyond perpendicular, which takes batsmen some getting used-to.
He doesn’t purchase as much bounce as Bashir, but generates over-spin and is unflinchingly accurate, whereas the off-spinner sprayed an occasional gift ball. For much of his career, Dawson seldom produced extravagant side spin and relied on change of pace, angle and release points. But in the last three years he has been extracting turn and fizz as well. “He’s started beating right-handers much more consistently on the outside edge and that makes his arm ball and the one that undercuts that much more dangerous as well,” Hampshire wicketkeeper Ben Brown told The Times recently. He would be a different bowler to the nervous debutant India pulverised 196 runs, nine years ago.
The vein of attrition in his bowling reflects on his batting too, the polestar that has fetched him 18 first-class hundreds. His addition, invariably, deepens England’s batting. Bashir’s first class batting average is 8.27; Dawson’s is 35.29. England would need both dimensions to shine, as Test cricket has finally begun to move fast for him.
