Interview: Hamza Shaikh ready to grasp his big opportunity at Warwickshire

It isn’t so much because of his appearance and a smartly groomed beard which, as such things sometimes can, fool you he is a little older.

It’s more so what Shaikh says - and the way he says it. Warwickshire’s newest batting hope, who on Wednesday signed a contract extension with the club, speaks with a maturity you would typically associate with a player who has significantly more than just four first-class appearances to his name.

That number is guaranteed to increase this summer as Shaikh gets the chance to firmly establish himself as part of the Bears’ first XI and further his reputation as a potential England player of the future. Whatever the next few months might hold, the former Sandwell College student leaves you in little doubt that mentally, he is prepared for it.

“Whenever the opportunity comes, I feel ready to mark my name down and make the most of it,” he says. 

“At a big club it is hard to keep getting chances, simply because of the size of the club and the players they have. I’ve just got to be ready.”

A casual glance at the numbers, initially, might make you wonder what all the fuss is about. In his first three County Championship matches for the Bears last summer, Shaikh passed 20 just once. 

Yet that unbeaten 33 came as part of a determined rearguard action to earn his club a draw at Worcestershire which went a long way to preserving the club's Division One status.

It is what Shaikh did elsewhere, meanwhile, which caused the most excitement and prompted some of the game’s most high-profile observers to anoint him a potential England player of the future.

His first-class debut did not actually come for Warwickshire but for England Lions in a tour match against Sri Lanka, in which he scored 91 against the team which just a few weeks later would secure a series win over the senior side.

A few months prior to that Shaikh had scored 84 for a County Select XI against the West Indies first-string attack. In between, he scored a century while captaining England under-19s.

It was those displays which had Michael Vaughan telling people to “watch out” for Shaikh.

“He can really play,” added the former England captain.

“It is nice to hear people’s opinions and it is nice to get compliments,” says Shaikh, who spent part of the winter in South Africa at a Lions training camp, headed by Andrew Flintoff. 

“From someone like Michael Vaughan, to get a compliment like that is really good. But at the same time you have to focus on yourself, score runs and put performances in. 

“There is only so much people can say about you but if you want to play international cricket, runs is what gets you there.”

It’s an answer which belies Shaikh’s big ambitions and though talk of England might seem awfully premature, the same would have been said of his Warwickshire team-mate Jacob Bethell being involved in the Test set-up just 12 months ago. This is an era when chances are increasingly given young.

Later, Shaikh adds: “I always set my standards high and train in a way that if I was asked to play an international game tomorrow, I would be ready for that. 

“I try and train like that, against extreme pace, extreme movement, extreme spin, to make sure that when any opportunities come I am ready for it.”

Shaikh is certainly no stranger to stepping up. Though he can’t precisely remember whether he was “11 or 12” when he played alongside dad Ilyas for Smethwick second XI but it is a matter of record he was 13 when he first appeared for Warwickshire’s seconds. He made his List A debut at 16 and has been a fixture in the club’s One-Day Trophy team for the past two seasons.

“I have never seen it as an age kind of thing, where I am too young,” he says. “It can fly past and before you know it, you will be 23, 24 and suddenly four or five years have gone. 

“I never think too far ahead of myself. It is what is in front of me right now. I want to make the most of it.”

Ilyas remains his biggest supporter. There is video online of a three-year-old Shaikh hitting ping pong balls around the living room of his Aston home. Similar footage, sent to Warwickshire’s youth coaches by former Bears all-rounder Mo Sheikh, a family friend, led to him being recruited for the county’s under-10s team aged just eight.  

More recently, Ilyas converted part of the garage to create a makeshift batting lane, which also includes a large portion of the hallway. The desire not to smash furniture, or anger the neighbours, helps hone technique. 

“It’s risk and reward, really!” laughs Shaikh. “I haven’t broken too many things, which is good.”

Comparisons with Birmingham’s biggest cricketing star from the inner cities, Moeen Ali, whose father Munir famously constructed a net in the garden where his sons practiced, are inevitable.

Shaikh immediately references his Warwickshire team-mate, who will retire from domestic cricket later this summer, when listing influences which also includes some of the best to ever play the game.

“I have always looked up to Mo,” he says. “From where he has grown up from, to the player he has become. 

“It is not only in cricket but as a faith as well, as a Muslim cricketer I always look up to him and how he goes about stuff.

“But there are many other (influences). I look at Tendulkar. I look at Joe Root. 

“The world’s best cricketers, I think they have something different to normal players which gets them to where they go, so I always watch them play and look for the differences which I can add to my game.”

That sums Shaikh up, thinking big, while not losing focus of the challenge right in front of him. It’s an approach you suspect could take him a long way.

“Last summer was really good in terms of landmarks,” he says. “But I just look back and think what can I take into this season and also, how can I make a better impact on the team?”

Shaikh is expected to bat at No.3 when the Bears begin their County Championship campaign at home to Sussex on Friday.

“I just believe if you work hard and you put in more effort than the person next to you, you will always have a better chance,” he adds.

“Obviously the chance does not always mean you perform and score runs. But it does put you in a better position to be successful. 

“I just see it that way. Regardless of what happens, if I am scoring runs or not scoring runs, it is about working hard and trusting myself and trusting in god that whenever I pray, I just leave it up to him.”