Fast-tracking the slow bowler a good decision When the cricket community took up Fawad Ahmed's cause back in July last year, no one imagined that he would end up pressing for Ashes selection. His club, Melbourne University, saw a young man who was stressed out about his asylum claim, whose friend (a fellow cricketer) had been killed by religious extremists in Pakistan, who was scratching out a living doing warehouse work, but who happened to be an excellent leg-spinner. Having followed Ahmed's journey closely over the past year, I am convinced that, had he been a pastry chef and not a former first-class cricketer, Melbourne Uni president Derek Bennett would have gone to the same lengths to help him, and to ask that his refugee claim, initially rejected, be reconsidered by then immigration minister Chris Bowen. The selectors think so, or they would not have asked Cricket Australia to persuade politicians to change the laws so that he could be eligible for this winter's series in England. Not everyone is happy about it, and maverick MP Bob Katter won't be the last person to question his Australian-ness. In fact, as Asia becomes the leading source of permanent migration, Ahmed is the face of a more diverse Australia than its cricket has reflected until recently. Nationality has become a fluid concept in international sport, but Ahmed's case differs from most in the sense that he did not come to Australia to advance his cricket career but to rebuild his life. The same cannot be said for, say, Kevin Pietersen, who left South Africa with the specific intention of playing for England, or even Luke Ronchi, who saw a chance to return from Australia to the country of his birth and play international cricket for New Zealand. Ultimately, what happens from here for Ahmed will be determined by how he bowls for Australia A against Ireland and Gloucestershire. As former chairman of selectors and leggie Trevor Hohns said last week, a quality leg-spinner is always an advantage against England. No one should expect Ahmed to be the next Shane Warne, but in his three Sheffield Shield games for Victoria the 31-year-old suggested he can build pressure as few spinners in the post-Warne era have been able to do, and he possesses a good wrong 'un. Nathan Lyon is developing and will fight to keep the No.1 spinner's mantle, but the selectors' reaction to the off-spinner's treatment by MS Dhoni in India suggests the spot is up for grabs. That didn't seem to faze him when he fronted the media with a broad smile on his face at the MCG on Thursday. Nor does he feel daunted by the responsibility of inspiring young people from migrant backgrounds to play cricket. "I'm strong enough," he said. Now it's the time for me to do my best, on the field to represent myself as a cricketer, off the field as an example to the whole country that I'm an Australian and that people can find a bright future here.