Rehan Ahmed wore a smile as wide as the Arabian Sea as he walked off the pitch in Karachi and declared it “the best day of my life”. On a tour of Pakistan already dripping in history, Ahmed’s debut continued the theme when, aged 18 years and 126 days, he broke Brian Close’s record (18 years and 149 days against New Zealand in 1949) to become England’s youngest men’s Test cricketer.
But Leicestershire’s leg-spinning all-rounder, playing in his fourth first-class match, was not done: his crucial removals of Saud Shakheel and Faheem Ashraf either side of tea on day one of the third Test, as he finished with figures of two for 89 from 22 overs, underlined the potential Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have seen.
