Yasir threat looms for England

Nearly four years ago, as England prepared for their previous Test series against Pakistan, they came across a legspinner in a warm-up match against a PCB XI. He claimed eight wickets. His name? Yasir Shah.

England's two surviving top-order batsmen from that tour - Alastair Cook and Ian Bell - had contrasting experiences against him: Cook made 133, Bell a second-ball duck. That's all they would see of Yasir on the tour. They actually won the match comfortably, by 100 runs, but it did not herald a successful Test series, instead they were whitewashed 3-0 as Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman shared 43 wickets.

Now Yasir is one of the major threats looming for England as they try to avenge those defeats. And his is a wonderful story of a player being rewarded for years of toil and waiting his turn.

This time last year Pakistan's spin bowling had entered a state of flux. As so often with their cricket, they found a way through a period of uncertainty.

Ajmal had been reported for a suspect action. He has not played Test cricket since and is unlikely ever to again: his first-class season for Worcestershire tallied 16 wickets at 55.62. His comrade Rehman, who took 6 for 25 to win the Abu Dhabi Test against England in 2012, drifted down the pecking order after playing his last match in August 2014.

They were considerable shoes to fill, especially the role of Ajmal. The Pakistan selectors, an unpredictable group at the best of times, plumped for Yasir, who had previously had a fleeting chance at international cricket in 2011 when he played two wicketless T20s and a solitary ODI against Zimbabwe. In the second of the T20s he was the sixth bowler used and sent down a single over. That would be it for three years while Ajmal held court.

Yasir sidled back to domestic cricket where he remained a consistent wicket-taker - 2011-12 brought 27 wickets at 21.74, 2012-13 earned 41 wickets at 25.63, 2013-14 had an impressive 48 scalps at 16.45. He also had the advantage of having a good man to impress: his domestic captain, when available, is Misbah-ul-Haq.

"Yasir has proved himself and he has made sure I have never missed Ajmal," Misbah said recently. "He has done extraordinarily and given us breakthroughs whenever we needed them. He has taken bunches of wickets, so what else would a captain want? He has had a great impact on our victories after Ajmal and he has become an integral part of the team."

In ten Tests Yasir has 61 wickets, making him the fastest Pakistan bowler to reach 50 in Tests. When you consider the pedigree of those he has overtaken - Imran Khan, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mushtaq Ahmed, Saqlain Mushtaq, Ajmal himself - that is a notable achievement.

"I just try my level best whenever I play," he said during the recent one-day series in Zimbabwe. "It doesn't matter what the result is in the end, good or bad, I'll keep making the effort because when I started playing cricket I never thought that this was going to happen."

The Test debut that may never have been came against Australia, in Dubai, last October, although his initial inclusion in the squad had been met with a sense of indifference amid the fallout of Ajmal's suspension. It would become a triumphant couple of Tests for Pakistan and Yasir. After the batsmen had piled up 454, it took a little while for Yasir to make his mark, but his maiden Test wicket came courtesy an errant cut shot by Steven Smith that found point.

But it was his second scalp that made people jolt upright. Bowling round the wicket to David Warner, who was in dominant form on 133, he pitched a delivery in the growing footmarks outside off stump. It gripped, ragged into Warner, who had already been lured into thinking it was there to cut. Before he knew it he was bowled. There were shades of Shane Warne to Andrew Strauss or Warne to Shivnarine Chanderpaul. It was quite a statement from Yasir.

"I actually started bowling legspin watching Shane Warne, and he is my idol," Yasir said during the Australia series, when Warne had lauded his performance. "My brother, who is in UK, used to show me his videos and send me the copies, so I tried to model my career watching him."

Fifteen wickets followed in three Tests against New Zealand, ten in two against Bangladesh and then 24 in three against Sri Lanka. He hasn't just been mopping up the tail either. Ross Taylor fell four times to him in three Tests, Angelo Mathews three times in the series, and both Mushfiqur Rahim and Smith three times in two Tests. Expect an England batsman or two to be in that collection by next month.

Yasir is a trailblazer for an art form that has entered a fallow period. There are a few legspinners around - Devendra Bishoo, Imran Tahir, Amit Mishra, Ish Sodhi and Adil Rashid - but not all of them play Test cricket, or if they have, they do not come close to Yasir.

He will be the finest legspinner England will have faced in Tests since Anil Kumble in the home series against India in 2007. That came shortly after Warne's final series in the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash. It marked the end of an era, when Warne, Kumble and, in a slightly less emphatic way, Mushtaq, Danish Kaneria and Stuart MacGill had dominated the game for more than a decade.

Since Kumble played his last Test in November 2008, Yasir's 61 wickets make him the leading legspinner. The next five between them - Bishoo, Mishra, Tahir, Kaneria and Sodhi - have taken 210 wickets at 41.67 in a combined 64 Tests. By way of comparison, in the period between 2000 and 2008, which encompassed a significant period in a golden age for wristspin, the top four - Warne, Kumble and Kaneria and MacGill - took 1081 wickets at 29.71 in 222 matches.

It is not that the game has been devoid of high-quality spin. The doosra (although there are significant question marks over its legality) and the carrom ball took over from the flipper and the googly. Even the occasional orthodox spinner, such as Graeme Swann and now Nathan Lyon, has managed to show that old-fashioned virtues still have a place, but wristspin has been a rare beast. And there are few better sights than watching a high-class legspinner work over a batsman. Unless you are the batsman in question.

England have seen Yasir once since that match in early 2012. He took 3 for 45 against them in a World Cup practice game at the SCG. Joe Root had a decent look at him that day in making 85, and that head-to-head will be one of the defining contests of the forthcoming series. This time, Yasir provides much than just a warm-up act.