Shoaib Bashir’s eyes welled up when he was told over the phone by England coach Brendon McCullum that he had been selected for the tour of India. His uncle Saj, a former wicketkeeper-batter who played a key role in his cricketing career, was overcome with emotions too, Bashir told The Guardian.
Saj told Bashir that he was living his dream through him. For the 20-year-old, getting selected to the England team, that too at a time when it is playing a revolutionary brand of Test cricket called Bazball — the fearless, attacking style named after McCullum’s nickname Baz — must indeed have felt like a dream.
But days before Bashir was scheduled to travel to India for the five-match Test series, that dream turned into a nightmare. He was stranded in Abu Dhabi, while the rest of the squad and the support staff boarded the plane to India.
