How Liam Dawson came in from cold to make Test return for England

After a long career of earnest striving to play Test cricket for England, and with his tally of caps stuck on three for the past eight years, Liam Dawson had moved on. “For me, Test cricket is now completely off the radar,” he said last year. “I’m 34. I want to enjoy my cricket and try to win trophies towards the end of my career.”

Sometimes, though, the object of our affections arrives just when attention has been turning elsewhere. Last month Dawson was plucked from the international wilderness to play his first white-ball matches for England in more than 2½ years. In his comeback match, the T20 international against West Indies at Chester-le-Street, he took four for 20 and was named the man of the match.

Now 35, the Hampshire all-rounder has been recalled to the Test squad and is expected to finally win cap No4 in the fourth Test against India at Old Trafford, starting on Wednesday. After Shoaib Bashir sustained a finger injury at Lord’s, England, with a 2-1 lead in the series, have opted to call on Dawson’s left-arm spin. His batting — with 18 first-class hundreds — will bolster the lower order.

The all-rounder will be reunited with Ben Stokes, now the England captain, but will find lots of new faces in the dressing room too STU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES

“He’s a genuine three-in-one cricketer, capable of performing with the bat, the ball and in the field,” Adi Birrell, the Hampshire coach, says. “He’s the most valuable player in Division One of the County Championship.”

It was two winters ago that Dawson’s time as an international cricketer looked to be up. The 2023 season with Hampshire had been the best of his career, with 49 championship wickets at a paltry average of 20 matched by 840 runs, including three centuries in a season for the first time. His white-ball form had been strong, too, and he was told that he was likely to be picked for the 50-over World Cup that autumn, only for the selectors to change their mind.

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He was then sounded out by Rob Key, the England managing director, about his availability for the Test tour to India in 2024. But Dawson had grown accustomed to being a nearly-man. He had been chosen in the squad or as a travelling reserve for three World Cups, including the triumphant 2019 tournament on home soil, without playing a game. In India he suspected he would be the reserve spinner and Key was unable to guarantee otherwise.

Dawson’s return comes in the wake of a broken finger for England’s frontline spinner Bashir GARETH COPLEY/GETTY IMAGES

Dawson wanted to play cricket and, with two young children, he had the opportunity to earn plenty of money on the franchise circuit. He informed Key of his choice and England went to India with Jack Leach, Tom Hartley, Rehan Ahmed and Bashir, while Dawson went away to play in the Big Bash, the SA20 and the ILT20 in the UAE. “It’s not something I want to be doing, running drinks at my age any more,” he said at the end of the winter. “I was really happy with what I chose.”

And then, in the 2024 season with Hampshire, Dawson surprised himself by exceeding his performances from the previous year. With the bat he scored 956 runs at an average a fraction below 60, and with the ball he passed 50 wickets in a season for the first time, his haul of 54 making him the championship’s leading spinner. The conscious step he had taken away from international cricket had helped the bits-and-pieces all-rounder step up to play a leading role with bat and ball.

From behind the stumps Ben Brown, the Hampshire wicketkeeper, has enjoyed watching a new fizz develop in Dawson’s bowling. “He’s always been pretty canny with the ball but we’ve seen him getting great shape and energy on it over the past couple of years, more so than earlier in his career,” Brown says. “He’s started beating right-handers much more consistently on the outside edge and that makes his arm ball and the one that undercuts that much more dangerous as well. He’s become a real handful.”

Dawson’s form landed him the PCA Men’s Player of the Year, PCA Men’s Domestic Overall MVP and the Vitality County Championship Player of the Year awards last year JOE MAHER/GETTY IMAGES FOR PCA

He has been helped, in part, by Hampshire preparing Rose Bowl pitches that turn more, but Dawson has learnt to adapt his game to any surface. “He’s performed well on tracks that haven’t spun and that’s a huge asset,” Birrell says. “He’ll bowl a really tight off-stump line, one might turn a bit and another one will go straight on, and that keeps three dismissals in play.”

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Old Trafford traditionally offers encouragement to spinners but Dawson is a very different pick from Bashir: his more attritional bowling, along with the bonus of his batting, are in keeping with the pragmatic style that England have adopted in this series. He is much shorter, too, than Bashir’s 6ft 4in, a departure from the high release point England have often favoured in recent times.

Dawson’s three Tests Dec 2016, India (Chennai) Bowl 43-2-129-2 Bat 66* & 0 Jul 2017, South Africa (Lord’s) Bowl 26.4-6-101-4 Bat 0 & 0 Jul 2017, South Africa (Trent Bridge) Bowl 18-2-68-1 Bat 13 & 5*

That 5ft 8in frame was the reason Dawson switched from bowling left-arm seam to spin as a teenager. He had started out wanting to bowl like his father, Andy, a left-arm pace-bowling all-rounder for Goatacre, the village club in Wiltshire. He was six months old when his father was part of the Goatacre team that won the National Village Championship final at Lord’s in 1990, and Dawson grew up around the boundary of a club that is the hub of the local community. His younger brother, Brad, also played for them and went on to play minor counties cricket for Wiltshire.

Dawson has also excelled in shorter formats having added further variety to his bowling DAVE VOKES/SHUTTERSTOCK

“From the age of three, whenever we were playing on a Saturday, he’d be in the nets all day long with a group of other lads,” John Wilkins, the club chairman, says. “He’d be in full whites, this tiny lad tearing around in a pair of baggy trousers, he couldn’t get enough of it.”

Aged seven, Dawson was player of the tournament in an under-13 competition. At nine, he was playing for the club’s adult third team. “He was small, but he was so skiddy that he’d get a few wickets,” Wilkins says. “He couldn’t hit it off the square at that stage with the bat but he held his own with the ball.”

Dawson went to his local state school in Calne and gravitated from Wiltshire towards Hampshire’s junior teams. At 16, he was picked for England Under-19, facing an Indian team including the likes of Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, the latter with whom Dawson will renew acquaintances next week. Brown, his future Hampshire team-mate, was also in the squad.

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“India absolutely wiped the floor with us,” Brown says. “Some of them had played about 50 first-class matches, we had about five county appearances between us. I remember Daws didn’t think his spin was that good, he just wanted to bat. I told him he was good enough to do both, but he’s always been a bit like that — he doesn’t realise quite how good he is.”

Dawson made his Test debut on the subcontinent in 2016 against India, the same opposition he is set to face at Old Trafford DANISH SIDDIQUI/REUTERS

His first-class debut for Hampshire followed at 17, under the captaincy of Shane Warne, who was playing his final first-class match. It began a long and fruitful career in which he has become one of the most admired players in county cricket. His chances at international level have been frustratingly sporadic, but he has always been the sort of player cherished by team-mates and feared by opponents.

“He’s always worked incredibly hard at his game,” Brown says. “He might be a bit old-school in terms of the gym and I think he drives the strength and conditioning department mad at times, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone work harder at their cricket skills.”

Dawson may be no gym bunny but a new fondness for running has enhanced his ability to bowl long spells. “His fitness has improved in the last few years, but bowling a lot of overs also gets him fit for purpose,” Birrell says. “He’s getting his chance now and he fully deserves it.”

Fourth Test

Wednesday July 23, 11am

Old Trafford, Manchester

TV Sky Sports Cricket

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