Leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed has insisted he is "ready" to make his England Test debut should the opportunity present itself this winter.
Ahmed, 18, has been named in the England Lions squad which will join the senior side in the UAE for a training camp and a warm-up match ahead of the three Test series against Pakistan in December. He is then expected to remain with the full squad as a travelling reserve and a net bowler.
The Leicestershire starlet was part of the England under-19s side which finished runners-up at the World Cup earlier this year and he notably ended the season with a maiden five-wicket haul and century in the County Championship against Derbyshire.
And should an injury occur to Jack Leach, the only frontline spinner in England's squad for the historic tour of Pakistan, it is not out of the question that Ahmed could be drafted in for a debut. "In cricket, and in sport, you're going to have ups and downs so when your times comes, your time comes," he told the PA news agency about the prospect of becoming England's youngest men's Test cricketer.
"If it comes now, I have to take it and do my best. My game is in a good place and I'm confident in my red-ball bowling. I want to play Test match cricket for England, it's the pinnacle, my dream since I was young.
"I say to every captain I play for – I'm always ready. If you want me at the death, if you want me to open the bowling, I'm ready to do it. Sometimes it's all timing. If I'd come up when Adil Rashid was 25 or 26 it would have been a different story but it's just God's timing, that kind of thing. I'm humble for it and thankful for it."
Ahmed has enjoyed a remarkable rise since the under-19s World Cup, earning a £50,000 contract in The Hundred with Southern Brave, making his first-class and T20 debuts for Leicestershire and featuring in two 50-over warm-up games for the Lions against South Africa.
However, the 18-year-old has long been on England's radar, having dismissed both Ben Stokes and Sir Alastair Cook when he was just 11 years old after being invited to bowl to them in the nets at Lord's ahead of a Test series against Pakistan in 2016.
"I actually bowled quite well, I never really looked at the player, I just tried to get them out," he reflected. "If I bowled to Ben Stokes now it would be like 'That's Ben Stokes!'. After that I went home there was stuff in the media…I was quite new to that. There was some chat about it at school.
"There's obviously expectation and at a younger age that's not always what you want, but it was quite a nice pressure to play with. It gave me something to play for and I think it actually made me better."
