‘One of the qualities that has been instilled into me is not to get too high or too low. Cricket is a very up and down game so it’s important to stay level-headed and take things in the short term’

Haseeb Hameed made his Test debut for England yesterday morning in Rajkot, six hours drive from where his father was raised and where the family—minus Haseeb, who stayed with the England squad to prepare for the Test—attended his brother’s wedding last weekend.
“I guess a lot of things are meant to be,” said Hameed on the eve of the Test. “The fact it (his debut) is against India in the home state of my parents, the way it has fallen into place, is amazing. I was asked if I wanted to go (to the wedding) but my family said it was better to stay with the team. They are from a small village near Bharuch, but my dad’s village is called Umraj.”
Hameed is the fifth youngest cricketer to play a Test for England. When given his cap on the morning of the match yesterday, he was 19 years and 298 days old but he looks much younger.
Hameed is wafer thin, with fingers like Twiglets. No doubt he goes to the gym like all the others but there is no discernible sign. There is a remarkable calmness when he shares his thoughts, speaking with a soft Mancunian accent.
“One of the qualities that has been instilled into me is not to get too high or too low. Cricket is a very up and down game so it’s important to stay level-headed and take things in the short term, day by day, ball by ball, as it comes,” he says.

“I guess a lot of things are meant to be. The fact it
(his debut) is against India in the home state of my parents, the way it has fallen into place, is amazing. I was asked if I wanted to go (to the wedding) but my family said it was better to stay with the team. They are from a small village near Bharuch, but my dad’s village is called Umraj”

He did not seem worried at all, even on match eve. He thought he might relax with a game of table-tennis, which one can surmise was probably not the form of relaxation chosen by fellow teenage England debutants, Brian Close and Denis Compton, on the eve of their first Tests in 1949 and 1937 respectively.
Already, Hameed suggests he has a mature perspective on his rapid rise to England’s ranks.
“It’s a great experience and at the end of the tour I will be a better player, regardless of how the tour goes. It’s a great chance to be part of an exciting England side. The key for me is not to dwell on it too much,” he says.
He is no stranger to India. “I have been a couple times on my own, training a bit in Mumbai. There has been some coaching with Vidya Paradkar to help me get used to the conditions. It’s always been a special place to come and hopefully it will be this time too.”
He is happy to acknowledge Virat Kohli as one of his cricketing heroes.
 “That’s another thing that excites me about this series. There are guys on both sides I can watch and learn from. And I have to do my job as well. It would be amazing to speak to a guy like Virat.”
On the television screens here there have been constant replays of the Ahmedabad and Kolkata Tests of 2012 (India won in Ahmedabad but lost in Kolkata) and Hameed recalls watching them first time around.
“I remember bits, how Cooky played and KP. I remember England were underdogs and they pulled off a remarkable victory. We can take confidence from that this time. We are underdogs here; coming to India is the biggest challenge in cricket.”