Former England captain Nasser Hussain believes if Liam Dawson ends up having a good series against India, then there is a strong chance he heads to Australia for the Ashes as the side’s No 1 spinner ahead of Shoaib Bashir. Dawson on Wednesday played his first Test match in eight years – with his previous game being the one against Chennai in 2016 and picked the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal off the seventh delivery he bowled on Day 1 of the Manchester Test.
On another see-saw day of Test cricket between both these teams, one aspect that stood out about Dawson was his control. In the previous three Tests, India batsmen have chosen to be aggressive against off-spinner Bashir who was ruled out of the series with a finger injury. And unlike the young spiner, the 35-year-old left-arm spinner Dawson bowled a bit quicker, giving less air time for the batsmen to step out. With his trajectory, he ensured batsmen mostly played from the crease as he used the rough outside the left-hander’s off-stump to good effect.
Writing in The Daily Mail, Hussain was all praise for Dawson. “On the first day at Old Trafford, when it’s not spinning a lot, you need to offer your team and your captain that control so that he can rotate the seamers at the other end. Dawson did that beautifully. India’s run rate dropped in the second session because of his control,” Hussain wrote of the second session in which India lost the wickets of KL Rahul, Jaiswal and Shumban Gill and scored 71 runs in 26 overs.
Compared to the tall Bashir who gets more turn and bounce, Dawson with his flat trajectory still managed to get good purchase of the Manchester strip, with Hussain mentioning what worked for him. “He is more accurate and challenges the pad of the right hander, as well as the outside edge of the left hander from that rough and with the drift that he gets. We saw that with his wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal. Because Dawson is landing it in the rough all the time, Jaiswal didn’t know if it was going to spin or not, and his natural variation and drift meant he took the outside edge and it carried to Harry Brook at first slip,” Hussain wrote.
Given the start he has had to the Test series on return, Hussain says if Dawson ends up having a good outing, then it could push Bashir to the bench in the Ashes. “If Dawson has two really good games against India, the debate will be about whether he should become England’s No1 spinner and play against Australia. But that’s for another time. He’s had one good day and he’s got one wicket – but he did his role and that’s all you can ask of anyone you bring into your team,” he wrote.
