Yasir Shah: Dare we believe the hype?

I know it's in the middle of an Ashes series, and thus I may not get too many bites for an article about a Pakistani leg spinner, but, might as well.

Right then, I trust the opening paragraph will have guilted enough of you into posting for this to be worth it. Anyone here reckon Yasir Shah could be the real deal? Only had a ten test career admittedly, but in that time, he's spun Australia ragged in a whitewash (okay it was a two test series, but if you watched it you'd have seen that you could have given Oz eight tests and they'd still be whitewashed), and flummoxed Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan batting line ups. Of course, England are coming up in a few months; given the English propensity to collapse like a cheap deck of cards at the mere sight of a slightly chubby leg spinner, one can only assume his already scarcely believable introduction to Test cricket will look even more amazing when he rolls England out. But does anybody think he has the staying power to become a 200-250 wicket spinner? I must admit, I haven't seen as much of him as I'd like, but he does look promising.

Not seen him, so cannot comment.

Its too early to say king, but I can't deny the fact of his promising performance against SL side. Though Aussies and BD are quite weak with good quality spin but shaking the Sri Lankans in their own den not only reveals the quality he possess but also shows the instinct of being a great spinner.

Since you raised the topic, I was looking at some other rising cricketers, well they are from BD. I am talking about Soumya Sarkar and Mustafikur Rahim. These two young fellas are taking the game too seriously, well SA and India can know better. I believe some instinct of DADA( Ganguly) is there in Sarkar. His batting technique and commitment towards the game is promising. May be I think BD has made the cricketing rulers, not to think them as minnows any more.

What does his action look like? There has to be a concern for any new spinner that at some point he will come to the attention of the ICC testers.

Not this one, Goosey. Clean as a whistle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR9tNtwsY8I.
Haven't really paid attention to the BD-SA series, but I'll give them a watch Kumar. BD have certainly come on in leaps and bounds. Because, sure our bowling line up over there is definitely second string, but our batting is, AB is excepted, is our best, and they ran through us in the last ODI

wait till he plays in SA, NZ, Eng and Aus....his performances there will distinguish him between a "all condition good" vs a " Home condition Bully".
and if he can average 4 wkts / test and around 30 runs / wkt......in those countries I would let him take a slot in the "all condition good" category.

I have seen so many spinners start in the subcontinent with a bang.....but would struggle in those 4 countries.....Ashwin, Jadeja to name a couple in recent times.

subhranshu.kumar.5 wrote:Its too early to say king, but I can't deny the fact of his promising performance against SL side. Though Aussies and BD are quite weak with good quality spin but shaking the Sri Lankans in their own den not only reveals the quality he possess but also shows the instinct of being a great spinner.

Since you raised the topic, I was looking at some other rising cricketers, well they are from BD. I am talking about Soumya Sarkar and Mustafikur Rahim. These two young fellas are taking the game too seriously, well SA and India can know better. I believe some instinct of DADA( Ganguly) is there in Sarkar. His batting technique and commitment towards the game is promising. May be I think BD has made the cricketing rulers, not to think them as minnows any more.

2 good names you picked out, Mustafizur is a very talented bowler, but Damn if you have not watched Sarkar bat, you are missing out, man has something special, sometimes you can just feel it when watching, one of the best hitters of the ball currently and at 22, amazing talent.

But as for Yasir Shah, to me he seems like the real deal, maybe not the greatest variations, but he's got great control over the ball, dare I say it, but Yasir shah's leg spinner and control is not far from Shane warne's, but obviously the latter had every trick in the book in addition to that.

Yasir Shah might be the difference between England and Pak, worried he might break the back bone of the england batting line up.

But as a neutral, excellent to watch, then again a good leg spinner is always entertaining

Yasir has had a fine to his test career. He can trouble the best of them on sub-continent tracks, that he has already proved. Now the challenge is to take it to the next level and provide his side an edge with the ball in away conditions. When playing away, he shouldn't have to do much of a holding role as Pakistan even today have seamers who can make use of seaming conditions, and I am not even talking about Wahab Riaz who can be a handful on any track on his day. If Whab stays fit and Junaid Khan rediscover himself, Yasir can play a very attacking role even in away conditions and that could only help him....... He has years of experience in domestic cricket, so his control is better than some of the other international legspinners of today.
An exciting bowler, worth watching.......

Only seen YouTube highlights of him but looks like he's gonna destroy us

KP_fan wrote:wait till he plays in SA, NZ, Eng and Aus....his performances there will distinguish him between a "all condition good" vs a " Home condition Bully".
and if he can average 4 wkts / test and around 30 runs / wkt......in those countries I would let him take a slot in the "all condition good" category.

I have seen so many spinners start in the subcontinent with a bang.....but would struggle in those 4 countries.....Ashwin, Jadeja to name a couple in recent times.

He is the Real Deal

In England in the first innings......no spinner has had an impact like this since Shane Warne

Yasir was truly outstanding, on a track that hadn't got much for him. Terrific control and clever variations. By the end of day 3 it looks like the track has got something to offer him, lets whether he can finish the job on England.......

Totak rubbish apparently


Based on one days figures *casual whistle *

Gooseberry wrote:Totak rubbish apparently


Based on one days figures *casual whistle *

He got a chanceless ton - I thought that was to be desired?



More seriously, first day on a good track was always going to be difficult.

Think Yasir is now feeling the pressure of expectation.

So much easier to bowl when your batsman have set up a big score. Misbah had to lose a toss eventually and it's made all the difference in this Test.

One bad inning does not undo the superb effort of Yasir on D1 of Lords
will Eng enforce follow-on tomm
if they don't ....fear of facing Yasir in the 4th inning will be one of the factors

well..he won them one test single handedley and had a big role to play in the 2nd win...with a 5-for


remember these are foreign conditions and his first real tour outside UAE....and delvering a telling blow every other game would be phenomenal if he can sustain this strike rate or even half of it

It's the fear of facing Yasir that delayed the declaration of Cook one time and conditioned him to bat first here in T4

On his first away tour, Yasir has overall, did very well indeed. He had his bad days when he not only failed to pick wickets, but went for plenty of runs too, but he has one a gain with the ball by himself, and played a big role in the 2nd win. Really does look a class act.......

I think overall he did OK, certainly a match winner in the first test but took a real hammering in the next 5 innings.
Ended with figures of Av 40.73 Ec 3.25 SR 75.1 which rather masks just how destructive he was when England got the jitters, but just how easily they creamed him when he didn't.

Contrasting this to the "remarkable" Ali who ended up with figures of 46.54 4.65 60.0 he certainly did OK comparatively. Of course some would say that Ali's SR makes him the better bowler, glossing over his complete inability to offer any control and huge number of runs he leaked for just 11 wickets. Which is probably why he bowls so much less.


Overall this probably gives us more realistic expectations of Shah ..he clearly can be dangerous on any surface but sustaining an average in the teens was never going to happen. Real deal no question.

And hopefully he'll have learned from the first experience of away tour with the test side and that in turn would make him an even better bowler.

I do think it also exposed just how much sides can get in a flap over a bowler. We saw it with Pakistan and Woakes too.
One minute England were able to comfortably deal with Shah, but when as soon as he got a wicket with England under pressure they would crumble. Its understandable for England who have a long bred fear of decent spin bowlers (espeically leggies) made worse by facing them so rarely in the county game. You can flip the same back for Pakistan and guys like Woakes, although they have a good production line of quality fast bowlers they dont tend to have that type of CC seamer who relies as much on subtlety as bludgening pace, and dont often get to play on "sporting" tracks of the nature seen in these tests...not quite the greentops they had last time but certainly more movement than theyd be used to in UAE or in their own first class game. It did seem like as soon as he started bowling well and had them under pressure a fear gripped Pakistan.