Suited and booted a well-known face watches intently behind the bowler’s finish stumps as a younger leg-spinner goes by his paces within the Nursery End nets at Lord’s.
He nods approving because the 13-year-old will get dip and switch.
Then he clasps fingers with the boy and says to him: “That’s awesome man, really really good, I want to keep a close eye on you. I think we’re going to be commentating on you really soon.
“I believe you may be taking part in first-class cricket by the age of 15.”
Shane Warne wasn’t quite right. Rehan Ahmed was 16 when he first played for English county Leicestershire, and that was in a white-ball List-A match.
Nor, tragically, will the great Australian cricketer ever commentate on Ahmed after his untimely death in March this year.
But Warne knew a good leggie when he saw one and in Karachi on Saturday Ahmed proved his talent-spotting right.
Now 18 Ahmed became England’s youngest Test cricketer when he played in the third Test against Pakistan.
And after a nervous opening spell, when he went for 37 runs in five overs, he showed he had guts as well as talent as he came back to bowl beautifully and snare two big wickets.
Ahmed set up Saud Shakeel, who went into the match as Pakistan’s highest run-scorer in the series, with a googly turning past the bat, before following it up with a leg-spinner that took the edge and was well caught off the pad by Ollie Pope at short leg.
That ended a 45-run partnership with skipper Babar Azam that had take Pakistan to a promising 3-162.
He then trapped the dangerous Faheem Ashraf for four as Pakistan subsided to 304 all out.
Ahmed first came to prominence aged 11 when he dismissed Ben Stokes and Alastair Cook in the nets having been invited to bowl at the national team.
But it was Warne’s approval that convinced his father Naeem that his son was on the path to greatness.
“When Shane Warne noticed him and mentioned just a few issues about him, and that basically meant one thing critical to me,” he mentioned.
“It made me suppose, ‘wow, if Shane Warne thinks this, then sure he’s going to be one thing particular’.”
Ahmed is 23 days younger than England’s previous record holder Brian Close was when he made his Test debut against New Zealand in 1949 at the age of 18 years, 149 days.
Having originally accompanied the squad to Abu Dhabi as a net bowler for England training camp prior to flying out to Pakistan, Ahmed impressed so much he was drafted into the squad.
“I did not count on to play,” he said after his first day’s Test cricket. “I simply got here on this tour to get higher, however they’ve given me an opportunity to play.
“I didn’t sleep at all last night. I was very nervous before the first ball, but the whole day was good.”
Ahmed added the spotlight was his father being current within the workforce huddle when he obtained his Test cap from former England captain Nasser Hussain, a teenage leggie himself who went onto make a profession as an upper-order batter, saying of his father: “He’s worked really hard with me throughout my life.”
