Shahzad's ferocity with bat and ball marked him down as a special talent

ON his first appearance for Woodhouse Grove School, 16-year-old Ajmal Shahzad almost smashed the headmaster's window with a booming six.

Not content with going close, he proceeded to pepper the outside of the headmaster's study with a succession of towering maximums on his way to an unbeaten 133.

He could bowl as well, as the English cricketing public will soon realise.

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On one visit to a Wakefield school, the Woodhouse Grove bowler sent a venomous delivery towards a cowering batsman, the ball crashing into middle stump and snapping it in two but leaving its bottom half rooted in the ground.

"I'd never seen a stump stay in the ground after being split in two in all my 24 years of coaching cricket," said Woodhouse Grove's master of cricket Ian Frost, the man who coached and tutored Shahzad during his A-level years. "He was the quickest schoolboy bowler I have ever seen."

That frighteningly fast bowler made his England Test match debut in the second Test against Bangladesh at Old Trafford yesterday.

The 24-year-old Yorkshireman became the 650th player to play Test cricket for England on an occasion when he was also the first Yorkshire-born Asian to represent England in the five-day format.

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His appearance in Andrew Strauss's team as a replacement for his Yorkshire team-mate Tim Bresnan comes just four months after he was first picked in the Test party.

Having spent most of that time as 12th man, Shahzad's ascension has a sense of tardiness for a young man who even in his maturing years was always in a hurry.

"In our winter nets I had to warn him all the time because he was bowling so quickly that he was hurting the batsmen who were facing him," reflected Frost on the first Woodhouse Grove pupil to progress to the England Test set-up.

"From the start it was easy to see that Ajmal could bowl fast, and he was always very committed and very keen.

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"I'll always remember the day he nearly sent a ball through the headmaster's window. It's a room which is only in reach from our field for the really big hitters, but Ajmal was just firing them in."

The Huddersfield-born, Bradford-raised cricketer toured Grenada with the school in 2004, just a few months before making his Yorkshire debut as a raw but hungry 18-year-old in one-day cricket. It was another landmark, Shahzad becoming the first Yorkshire-born Asian to represent the county.

His impact at Woodhouse Grove was considerable – he took 44 wickets at an average of 6.6. "We're absolutely thrilled he's done so well for himself," said Frost.

During his years at the Leeds school – which he visits annually to present trophies to the players who hope to follow him – and those preceding at Bradford Grammar, Shahzad worked his way up through the ranks of Yorkshire's junior section and into their Academy.

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His one-day debut for the county in 2004 was followed by his first-class bow in 2006, but it was not until last season that he established himself in Yorkshire's Championship side after years spent learning his trade under bowling coach Steve Oldham as the likes of Darren Gough and Matthew Hoggard blocked his path to the first team.

Shahzad was named the players' player of the season, and had it not been for Yorkshire's decision to swap the Bangladesh Test for the Pakistan v Australia match later this summer his debut would have been in front of his home fans.

Yorkshire chief executive Stewart Regan said of his Test bow: "We're absolutely delighted for him.

"He's been tipped for this for the last eight months or so and has been dragged around the world and not been given a chance to show his skills, but it's great that he's now able to do it in his home country, not too far from his home town."

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The Yorkshire board are beginning to see the fruits of a recruitment scheme set up in the last decade to tap into the county's large Asian community, and Regan said: "Ajmal becomes a fantastic role model for young British Asians.

"There are thousands of kids who idolise him and Adil Rashid, who have both made similar strides at the same time.

"It sends a message to the Asian lads in our Academy that if they're good enough they can go on to represent England."