Haseeb Hameed broke a record even before he took the field in the first test against India at Rajkot. At 19 years and 297 days, he became England's youngest test opening batsman and the fifth youngest player overall. Denis Compton is the only specialist batsman younger than Hameed ever to represent England, while the other three were selected as all-rounders: Brian Close, Jack Crawford and Ben Hollioake.
Hameed heard about his selection only on Tuesday. Until then, the assumption was that Jos Buttler, rather than Hameed, would replace Gary Ballance after his poor series in Bangladesh. Hameed said it was amazing how fate had worked out that he would make his test debut in the same state of Gujarat where his parents were born before they migrated to Lancashire, and where his brother Numan was married last week.
