Rudimentary in that the hard pitches here help the wrist-spinner to obtain much more turn and bounce than on the softer English wickets. Rude in the sense that the Australians are past masters of the dubious art of sledging.
Shah happens to be Pakistan born, another verbal dart for the New South Wales fielders as he thwarted their attack at Tamworth for more than seven hours in both innings of a game, which England eventually lost by nine wickets.
It was hot and sticky and raucous, enough to test the most grizzled veteran, yet Shah - scarcely 18 and still at school back in Heston, Middlesex - appeared totally unfazed by the hubbub.
``I had heard that the Australians play it tough,'' he said afterwards, ``and that is no understatement. But you just have to accept it. I hadn't come across sledging before. I tried to ignore it, that was all I could do''.
His colleagues were unstinting in their praise of the youngster's performance, as much for his composure as for the quality of his batting which produced two totals in the 70s.
His captain Adam Hollioake described Shah's coolness under such pressure as ``phenomenal''.
Mike Gatting, the coach on this tour, is Shah's team captain at Middlesex. ``What impresses me most is that he is as levelheaded as any young guy I have come across.
``He never seems to get rattled and that will help him to become a better player. His innings in Tamworth, and some he played for us in the championship last summer, bore the stamp of a much more experienced batsman. I have seen teenaged batsmen as talented as him, but he has this extra quality which singles him out.''
Gatting said he was ``mildly surprised'' but extremely pleased that Shah had been picked for the tour. ``All the same, if we are going to take a young man along, I think he was the most talented youngster available.''
Part of the credit for singling out Shah must go to Micky Stewart, now director of coaching at the National Cricket Association. When the selectors asked who was the youngster from the under-19 level most likely to succeed, Stewart's immediate response was Shah - again partly on the basis of his early maturity - although there were other teenagers in county cricket who might have been considered ahead of him on the basis of performance.
On his brief tour of discovery of Australia, Shah has already encountered bowlers of a type and quality he might not have faced in many seasons of county cricket. In Tamworth he came up against a leg-spinner in Stuart MacGill, who turned the ball considerably and could be on the next Ashes tour of England.
Shah played without any visible signs of perturbation many overs from the left-arm wrist-spin of David Freedman, the first bowler of chinamen he had come across in anything but one-day cricket.
A New South Wales state selector, bemused by the swiftness of eye and speed of hand with which Shah played both men, surmised that the teenager read them off the pitch. Shah was quick to repudiate that.
``I play them from the hand,'' he said. ``You have to, otherwise on a good length you are always going to be struggling.''
Shah attributes his success to the Middlesex coaches Ian Gould and Don Bennett and to Gatting. He admits to modelling his style on his county colleague Mark Ramprakash.