Rob Smyth: Owais Shah – England’s misused talent
October 12th, 2009 by Rob Smyth in England, One-day cricket
When England’s tour parties were announced last week, the ‘news line’ focused on the inclusion of Kevin Pietersen and the controversial but explicable omission of Steve Harmison. As a consequence, and because of the overload of names you get when tour parties are announced, it took around ten minutes before the penny dropped: Owais Shah had been dropped.
If it was to be Shah’s farewell, and although he is only 30 it is hard to see him coming back from here, there was something appropriate about the way the story broke. Even Sky Sports News – who use their yellow breaking-news ticker to excitably report England footballers emerging from a trip to the toilet unscathed – couldn’t find a place for Shah. Nor, for most of his eight-year international career, could England.
There is something peculiarly English about the rejection of Shah. Only in this country could Alastair Cook be preferred in a one-day squad. For decades, English cricket has looked longingly from its dreary two-up two-down and marvelled at how the rest of the street lives, how they embrace life in such an unfettered, stylish way. Yet whenever England are invited over the road, they prefer to stay at home.
Kevin Pietersen has been treated with an unacceptable suspicion despite being a consummate professional and a genius, while the career of Shah is a perfect study in how to completely waste a truly unique talent.
Given the contempt with which England have treated Shah down the years, it‘s a surprise he didn‘t hear of his omission on Twitter, or via carrier pigeon. Yet he was told, and given the explanation that he had not been consistent enough. This is thoroughly unsatisfactory. Since being recalled to the one-day side in 2007, he has
scored more runs, made more fifty-plus scores and hit more sixes than anyone else. Apart from that, he has really struggled. And while we can’t ignore the fact that Shah has played more than anyone else in the team, his consistency has been more than acceptable.
Shah has reached fifty in 23 per cent of his innings in that time, which puts him above everybody in the current squad except Andrew Strauss (27) and Eoin Morgan (25). And for England to drop a player for lack of consistency when they persist with Paul Collingwood, a man who when out of form bats like a blindfolded man trying to cross a dual carriageway, is ridiculous. Collingwood is a fine one-day player who showed the value of rest with his batting during the Champions Trophy, but he has just two half-centuries in his last 14 ODI innings, not decisively better than Shah’s two in 17.
Collingwood is a good point of reference for Shah, because he brings so much else aside from batting. He is a good bowler, a fine fielder and, we are told, very good to have around the dressing-room. Shah is an average bowler, a woeful fielder (and runner); and, though nobody has ever said he is not good to have around the dressing-room, the impression has always been that his face has not quite fit. England have habitually mistrusted the outsider. Shah is different, but that should be a good thing. Ideally cricketers probably should be three-dimensional these days, but that must not be a deal breaker: if we adhered strictly to the idea of how a cricketer should be, a genius like Jesse Ryder would never get a game.
The simple fact is that, with the bat, Shah does everything England don’t do in one-day cricket. He hits sixes, huge ones too. He has a force that, at its strongest, cannot be contained, which was demonstrated only three innings ago with his match winning 98 against South Africa, when he creamed 45 from his final 20 deliveries. He milks spinners effortlessly, a traditional failing of England (If you compare the 55 matches since Shah’s recall in 2007 with the 55 matches before, opposition spinners have conceded 0.44 runs per over and 6.30 runs per wicket more), and has the confidence to confront them, as he famously did on his Test debut in Mumbai. He looks the opponent in the eye and ask them what they’ve got.
Dropping a player like Shah, who has averaged 35 with a strike-rate of 82 over a two-and-a-half-year period, is the sort of decision that only very good teams should have the right to take, like when Australia cast aside Dean Jones or Michael Slater from their Test team. England, as you may have noticed, are not a very good one-day team, and nowhere near good enough to be dropping players like Shah.
His incredible nervous tension at the crease is often used against him, but is it any wonder he has not felt at home? He has been mistreated by England right from the start. In 2001, after an impressive start to his international career in a largely dismal one-day series, he was overlooked for the first Ashes Test with Usman Afzaal being selected instead.
He was dropped after an outstanding Test debut in Mumbai in 2006. (If this was the right decision – Shah was only covering for injury – it added to the sense that it simply was not meant to be, especially when England instead turned to Ed Joyce for the Ashes tour eight months later.) Then, when the time was so obviously right for him to be given a decent run in the Test side, in Sri Lanka in 2007-08, England went with Ravi Bopara and buggered two careers with one boneheaded decision.
When he did finally get an opportunity in the Test team, in the Caribbean earlier in the year, too much water had gone under the bridge for him to be able to bat with the necessary freedom. Even then, however, he was given only three matches before being discarded – a decision that was entirely at odds with England’s largely admirable selection policy. Whether Shah would have made a good Test player we will never know, but he deserved a fair chance to find out.
There are only so many rejections a man can take. He is human and he needs to be loved, just like everybody else does. In a sense, it’s a miracle he lasted this long. It’s largely supposition, as it must be from afar, but a combination of information and instinct suggests that but Shah has been treated like dirt. England may now have washed their hands of him, but the stains of a wasted talent will always be visible.
Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist who writes on cricket for guardian.co.uk
Posted in England, One-day cricket | 30 Comments »
October 12th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
The decision to cast him aside like prawns that have been left in the sun too long is curious and to the detriment of English cricket.
The decision to have Alistair Cook in any ODI team in world cricket let alone a reasonably competitive one like England is laughable. The bloke is lucky to hold down a test cap give his recent form but they’ll stick with him and rightly so, if only they afforded Shah the same luxury.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I agree, Rob Smyth. He has never had much security in the ODI team and somehow you just knew the test career wasn’t going to happen.
He is a great batsmen to watch when in full flow, far more exciting than Strauss, Cook or Colly, but he’s never going to get any further now.
October 12th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
England’s handling of Shah ranks among the worst examples of man-management in the history of sport.
When you compare how Collingwood, Cook and Bell (until recently) have been favourably managed in both Tests and ODIs, the hypocrisy of the England team management is staggering.
Shah’s just played the best ODI innings by an English batsman in years, and he is thanked with the chop. Spot on, Rob.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Owais Shah cannot run between the wickets and forgets where his stumps are and treads on them. Not really an international player.
October 12th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Rob, thanks for covering this, though it does read a bit like an obit, which may or may not be called for. I was surprised to see no coverage of Shah’s dropping on the guardian (though I did see the link to this blog there).
Not sure what you mean by “outsider”/”different” though.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Owais Shah is a showman i love watching him play. I saw him tour here (Sydney) in the early 90’s with an A squad and i thought he would play a 100 tests. Its laughable that Bopara played ahead of him or even Bell in Test cricket. Dropping Him from the limited overs team is a cardinal sin. Luke wright averages 20 with the bat and 50 with the ball and gets included ahead of him, its a joke.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:52 am
It is a racial decision, especially when the replacement is Cook! England’s one day future is cooked, pure and simple. Shah is of Asian origin, not a Anglo Saxon like Cook! How can he fit in modern day England/GB?
October 13th, 2009 at 7:43 am
A very fair and balanced article and the fact remains that in a one-day team full of mediocre players like Cook, Bell and Collingwood, Shah does indeed deserve a longer run. His superb innings in the Champions Trophy hints at his true potential, and he could very well become a world class batsman if the pressure of being constantly in and out of the team is lifted from him.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Really good article, I thought. Totally agree. And I liked the Smiths’ line…
October 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Both Ramprakash and Hick suffered from being in the Endland set-up at the same time that other players were guaranteed a long run while batting in their normal position while Ramps and Hick were moved up and down the order, dropped, recalled and even in Hicks case denied a hundred by a callous declaration in an Ashes Test Match in Australia.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Rob, I couldn’t agree more.
The decision seems particularly odd coming only two matches after that win against South Africa, in which he starred in the best England ODI batting performance I can remember.
(And congratulations on working in the Smiths too.)
October 13th, 2009 at 11:17 am
The key passage of the article for me is “England have habitually mistrusted the outsider”. If you take a look back over the years these outsiders tend to be those of an ethnic origin like Cowans,Shah and Bopara overseas converts such as Hick, Pieterson and Caddick or non conformists such as Tuffnel who do not fit the bland, public school educated profile that the England management want and are therefore not looked after or indulged in the way that Cook, Collingwood currently and others previously have been. All the talk of merit and form goes out of the window when you look at the comparative stats.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Agree with Smyth 100%. But Bill Edmunds, please don’t dig up that tired old story about Hick bring denied a hundred by nasty old Atherton being the reason why he never pushed on to fulfil his potential. Athers wanted to declare, Hick knew he wanted to, and if he’d had any sense he would have
October 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
hit out a bit rather than scratching around in the 90s for about six overs.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I don’t think the selectors are racist. Hick was picked far too many times when his (international) form didn’t warrant it, as was Chris Lewis and several others. And as for Cook, leave him alone he is ace!
October 13th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Watching the last Delhi Daredevils champions league match, i was starting to appreciate Shah and starting to think he was actually a good batsman.. He was clean bowled exactly 10 seconds later. So thats that. His best moment of the tournament so far is when he a catch came to him while he was talking to the commentators. The way his voice went high was hilarious.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Andy Flower knows something about being an effective one day batsman. The fact that Shah has been dropped (again) we can either attribute to a conspiracy, or the fact that the selectors are putting together a squad they feel is capable of winning one day games. If he continually fields badly (giving up runs) and runs badly between the wickets (running people out), his personal achievements may not outweigh his detriment to the team – i am not saying this IS the case, i haven’t done an analysis, but you would hope Flower has done so. When Geraint Jones and Matt prior dropped catches they were rightly questioned about whether everything else they brought to the team was enough to keep them there. Should we not ask the same of other team members?
October 14th, 2009 at 12:19 am
As usual English-Asian cricketers got the raw deal.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:55 am
Kind of agree with what ‘TO Sports Fan’ wrote. Think Shah was dropped for running between the wickets and fielding.
The selectors might have taken the view that he needs to score a lot more runs than others to make up for his shortcomings.
I always got the impression that his face didn’t quite fit with the management though for whatever reason.
If as the article states that he was told the reason for getting dropped was “that he had not been consistent enough”, I think he is quite entitled to ask the question “Since when has that been a good enough reason for getting dropped from England”? As the same rules don’t seem to apply to the test batting line up.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:00 am
It was disappointing this didn’t get more coverage, the Harmison dropping getting more focus, despite being unsurprising.
I think this decision was essentially made before the CT. Shah and Bopara would have been dropped after the Oz ODIs but the squad had already been picked. The middle order is now over-stocked with Trott and KP coming in.
I don’t think it’s the end for Shah, England will always produce a new One Day strategy and bring in a completely different set of players.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
I agree completely about the poor treatment of such a talented cricketer. If he had been treated like for example Collingwood has, then the result would have been terrific for England. He is a player that has been dropped and overlooked despite good showings over his career. On this occassion the decision is arguablly correct. However, the same criteria should apply to others as well.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Completely agree, plus a stealthy Smiths reference at the end; well done Smyth.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
It is all about giving him confidence. When KP was captain he showed him confidence and moved him up to #3. Under KP he was averaging 54,85! The first thing Strauss did when he came in was move him down the order??? Liked to have known the reason for moving a player avg. 55 under previous captain down the order???
The inning against SA in CT was the best inning I have seen in years. Judging by the paranoia of the english selectors (and media) two more runs for his hundred would probably have landed him in test squad
October 17th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Shaha (and Bopara too an other Englishmen) must lament the fact that he’s not South African and cannot whine about ‘quotas’ etc and walk into the England team. Dear Basil will be rolling his eyes at this ironic trun of events. Wow, the English sure know how to screw things up for everyone inlcuding themselves of course. What is it? Some kind of sanctimonious but utterly bizzare take on fair-play
October 20th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Rob, not a bad article, though you have written better (is Jess Ryder really a ‘genius’?).
I think stats could be turned around to prove that Shah has let the England team down, even when he has scored runs, he has thrown his wicket away. It’s easy to look at his career in isolation, but look at the actual events. I agree Collingwood should have been dropped too, but Shah doesn’t give us solidity or confidence, and this is obviously the feeling in the dressing room – remember Jimmy Anderson saying “Well if we can’t run between the wickets then we don’t deserve to win”….
October 21st, 2009 at 5:24 am
England have to move on. There is a reason he is not trusted – he’s not good enough. One century in the short form of the game is poor. Terrible fielding and terrible running between the wickets does not help his case.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:18 am
Good article Rob. I was at that Mumbai Test and thought that Shah was excellent – despite the fact that he was suffering from dehydration all the time. Gutsy and skilful.
I saw Shah interviewed a few days ago after he has top-scored for the Delhi Daredevils (and run our Karthick!). It was quite extraordinary how relaxed and happy he looked – so unlike the stressed-out Shah that we are used to here! I am a big fan of Andy Flower but wonder why he has failed to manage both Shah and Bopara this year. Surely they are up there in the top five of English batsmen in any form of the game – and neither will be in SA!
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Heartfelt but rose-tinted specs as far as the Tests go. I watched Shah in the Caribbean and he was just terrible on the flattest batsmen friendly pitches imaginable. He just got worse and worse while his teammates got centuries galore. Pointless persisting. Why are you making excuses for his nerves? No other batsman has benefitted from your kindly dispensation. Test cricket is a nerve-wracked thing. If he cracks at age 30 in the Caribbean against low-key bowling what’s the point?
As for Colly and Bell. They are world class fielders. Shah’s fielding was just appalling. As was Bopara’s. The remedy is in their own hands. Bopara needs to smarten up in the field if he is not to repeat Shah’s mistakes.
I like Shah as an ODI cricketer – his running and fielding apart, but his average is much lower than Bell’s. So why isn’t Bell still in the ODI side? He was dropped averaging 35 and he’s been badly managed too, shoved up and down the order to please all sorts of whims and fancies – usually of the media. Bell had a very good 50-over season in County cricket – much better than Trott’s as it happens. And he was a storming success in Pro-40, a game he’s never played before. Both Cook and Bell have been starved of the County short form of the game because of International duties. Maybe they should have a chance to shine?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I agree Jackie. A very sage point regarding Bell – he was excellent as a one-day opener for a sustained period, had a good strike-rate, and suffered for the inability of others (mainly Prior) to find the ropes.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
In a fast moving, competitive world cricket fans and selectors demand all-round (repeat, all-round) consistency and Shah simply has not shown this.