How many cricketers have you met who get stroppy and throw the towel in when they have been dropped from a team or suffered a loss of form?

I have met loads of them.

And was in fact exactly like this myself when I played.

I was crying out for someone to tell me about a brilliant case study of someone who had hit a “speedbump” in their development roads and had found a way over it.

Well, you are in luck.

As England’s latest Test Match batting sensation, Haseeb Hameed, has turned despair and embarrassment in February into a hugely successful Test Debut in November, only nine months later. It’s a great story and one that we can all learn from.

Overnight success?

Haseeb’s has become an overnight sensation in Rajkot this past week scoring 31 and 82 on Test debut at the tender age of 19.

The real truth is that Haseeb is not an overnight sensation at all. He is someone that I heard about five years ago when then Lancashire Academy Director, John Stanworth, an exceptional cricket coach, spoke with me about a very talented 14 year old that he was working with.

John showed me some footage of the boy playing and talked to me about his strengths and development areas that they were working on during the winter development phase.

Concentration, composure, freedom of movement and his ability to play spin were the standout points that I saw on the screen and heard in Johns glowing reference.

It was fantastic to see the same qualities, refined and enhanced, very much on show last week. They are qualities that will stand Haseeb in good stead in his International career.

So it was a huge surprise when I learnt that Haseeb was not going to be selected for the England squad for the 2016 ICC U19 World Cup in Bangladesh back in February.

At first I thought that the England selectors had made a huge mistake, then, through a more logical lens I started to sense that there must be a very good set of reasons for his non-selection given his technical competence.

When England were knocked out by Sri Lanka on a typical Bangladesh pitch in the quarter finals it was easy for people to point the finger at the selectors and coaches and cite Haseebs non-selection as the main cause of the teams failure.

Leaving the best player of spin behind when entering sub-continental playing conditions is scandalous, surely?

The very same player arrived in Bangladesh eight months later as a member of the England Test Squad. Now, that is some achievement.

Speed bumps maketh man

I’m sure that Haseeb was devastated to be dropped for the U19 World Cup. He had worked so passionately over the previous five years and that is a huge kick in the backside for anyone to take.

Many people would have been despondent, negative or demotivated by this news.

Haseeb chose to work even harder.

He took the feedback from his non-selection on the chin and used the experience as a motivating - rather than derailing - experience.

Very few players have a seamless journey from junior cricket all the way through to the pinnacle of the game.

In fact, it has always worried me to see players progressing without speedbumps.

You know that if they don’t experience disappointment, injury or non-selection during their journey to the top then there is a good chance that they won’t possess the skills to cope with the disappointments and pressures that are inevitable at International level.

Resilience - to me the most crucial mental attribute - is often developed as a result of coping with “speedbumps” along the way.

Haseeb’s non-selection was a huge speed bump and the Bolton-based teenager responded brilliantly to that experience.

It is this resilience as well as his technique and temperament in the middle which has made some of the biggest names in the game stand up and wax lyrical about him in the past week.

Here to stay

England Coach Trevor Bayliss said of Hameed “He’s been with the squad for about six weeks, but it feels like he’s been here for two or three years - he’s got that type of a personality”

This is exactly the sense that Duncan Fletcher and I got when Alistair Cook walked into the dressing room at Nagpur just over 10 years ago.

The composure was very similar, his thinking was very clear and it also felt like Cooky had been with us for years.

Both Haseeb and Cook have embraced the speed bumps in their early years to be able to come back from disappointment. Obviously, Cook has proven this over and over again to become England highest Test run scorer of all time but the signs are also good for Hameed.

Support is crucial

Hameed was backed significantly by Lancashire Director of Cricket, Ashley Giles back in February.

Ash has overcome his own speed bumps as both a player and as a coach. Ashley’s own resilience has been developed as a consequence of being told that he wasn’t good enough as player at various points in his early career and still kept grinding it out, getting better each day.

He converted from pace to spin, moved Counties and came back from being heckled by most commentators in his first Test to take over 140 dismissals in 54 Tests.

Ashley has won championships with Warwickshire, T20 Trophies with Lancashire and come through another speedbump with England when they shifted back to wanting only one coach for their three formats instead of two. Giles was harshly jettisoned at the time, yet this experience only strengthened his resolve and determination to do well.

What better person to guide the impressionable Haseeb through his first significant cricketing speedbump?

The net result of the way that Haseeb and Giles dealt with the non-selection was that the Lancashire teenager scored 1198 runs at 49.19 in the 2016 County Championship season and secured his place on the Test cricket plane!

So next time you hear a player moan about being dropped, whinge about the luck they are having or claiming that their career is over, remind them of how some speedbumps in the road helped build England’s newest Test batting sensation.