Chris Waters: Mark Stoneman can wait, Haseeb Hameed is England's answer

It is possible that they would have dropped the Yorkshire captain in any case after scores of 20, 34, 27 and four in the first two Tests.

Now they have no choice but to find a replacement as England look to recover from the defeat at Trent Bridge that left the four-match series locked at 1-1.

After Ballance was ruled out with the injury sustained when he was struck by a short ball from Morne Morkel, there has been increasing support for Surrey’s Mark Stoneman, who appears to have moved into pole position.

The left-hander is the third-highest run-scorer in this year’s County Championship First Division behind Ballance (815) and his own Surrey team-mate Kumar Sangakkara (1,086), having hit 761 in eight games at an average of 58.

Other uncapped players such as Tom Westley, of Essex (averaging 53), Dawid Malan, of Middlesex (averaging 42), and another Surrey player, Rory Burns, (60) have also been mentioned.

There is certainly no shortage of views and opinions.

Mine, for what they are worth, is that we should both rewind the clock and also look ahead to next winter’s Ashes series and beyond.

Last November, you will remember that a young man named Haseeb Hameed burst on to the international scene with some success. Then aged 19, he scored 31 and 82 on Test debut against India in Rajkot, and he also made an unbeaten fifty on his third and final appearance in Mohali.

Such was Hameed’s skill and bravery in Mohali (he was batting with a shattered finger that later required surgery), Virat Kohli, the India captain, branded him a “star”, while England coach Trevor Bayliss admitted that the England players were in “awe” of his performance.

Dubbed “Baby Boycs” by those same England players, in tribute to his disciplined style that evoked comparisons with Geoffrey Boycott, Hameed just looked the part – a player inked in to play for his country for the next 15 years and more.

Since then, the right-hander has had a wretched time.

Seven Championship games have brought 214 runs at an average of 19. Some believe that his confidence was disturbed by his injury, others that the problems have been more technical/tactical. “There is nothing wrong with his game,” asserted his county coach, Glen Chapple, “it’s more about his tactics.

“He looked to expand his game at the start of the season and it wasn’t the wrong thing to do. It just didn’t pay off and he hasn’t made the scores. That can happen to any batter.”

Hameed fired a timely reminder of his talents with an innings of 110 for the Lancashire second team against MCC Young Cricketers at Urmston on Tuesday.

Batting with Boycottian resolve, the type of resolve that the England top-order requires, he dug in for nearly five hours to complete a 205-ball hundred which, although achieved in a second-team match, boded well.

Alas, there is no Championship cricket at present for Hameed to further oil the machinery of his game, the product of an irreperably broken system.

But before we go running to Stoneman, Westley, Malan, Burns or anyone else, let us not forget Hameed, whose return to the top of the order alongside Alastair Cook would also break up the run of left-handers.

If one is showing faith in Hameed, one should also extend it for now towards Keaton Jennings, who has struggled lately but who has a century and a half-century in his four Tests to date.

I would move Jennings down to No 3 at the Oval but would have no hesitation in recalling Ballance going forward and moving him from No 3 to No 5, a position to which he is surely far better suited. In an ideal world, I would personally favour a top six of Cook, Hameed, Root, Bairstow, Ballance and Stokes, with the likes of Jennings, Stoneman, Westley et al the next in line.

Some will see No 4 as much too high for Bairstow, particularly with the demands of wicketkeeping, but I believe that he is good enough – and strong enough mentally and physically – to do it, and then you would also have the three best batsmen (Root, Bairstow and Cook) in the top-four. None of these suggestions are likely to materialise, of course, with a Cook-Stoneman-Jennings top-three the most probable scenario at the Oval, where spinner Liam Dawson could also keep his place and pace bowlers Toby Roland-Jones or Jake Ball be drafted in to replace Mark Wood.

I have no problem with giving Wood a breather – although yesterday scans on his left heel confirmed no serious injury – but I would go for Craig Overton of Somerset, a 23-year-old pace bowler with an excellent future.

Overton has been in and around the England set-up but has yet to represent his country, and with Yorkshire’s Liam Plunkett on the road back from injury, Overton would be a forward-thinking pick.

Certainly no one who watched him take nine wickets at Scarborough the other week can be in any doubt that this lad can bowl. After Hameed for Ballance and Overton for Wood, my third change for the Oval would be Adil Rashid for Dawson. The Yorkshireman is clearly a much better cricketer – as is Nottinghamshire’s Samit Patel, when it comes to it.