HSPS graduate and Surrey spinner Zafar Ansari – who left Cambridge with a double-first – has added another success to his list of achievements following the announcement that he has been selected for the England series against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi next month.

However, the good news was tempered by the revelation that the all-rounder– a Cambridge Blue who played for both the university and MCCU teams – dislocated his thumb just hours after the call-up. He faces an anxious wait to see whether he can make the tour.

Ansari is something of an exception to the sporting norm, viewing professional cricket as just one part of his life. The former politics and sociology student has in the past struck a markedly different tone from the one that usually prevails among sporting elites, declaring to Sportsmail that cricket “isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things”, while musing publicly about quitting the sport for a law conversion course.

Indeed he seems to value his job more for what it affords than for the experience itself. A keen musician who is also undertaking a 40,000 word masters dissertation on a little-known armed civil rights group in the 1960s American South, the left-hander views cricket as little more than a day job. While welcoming his call-up in a typically humble fashion, Ansari emphasised his sadness at having to leave his girlfriend for such a long time. His injury may yet mean that he does not have to.

Ansari – who made his England debut back in May in a one-day international against Ireland – has in the past spoken about his difficulties in balancing his burgeoning cricket career with a full-time degree. He told ESPN: “there is the expectation at Cambridge that everything you do is dedicated towards your academic work, which is on a pedestal.”  His success in overcoming scepticism from some supervisors about the value of cricket lay in his undoubted work ethic and good fortune in having a Director of Studies who was very interested in cricket.

Ansari will discover in the coming days whether he has been given the medical all-clear to capitalise on these opportunities.