This blog has followed Adil Rashid since he made his debut for Yorkshire - overhyping young English spinners is part of what Liberal England is about.
So I was sorry to hear that he has decided to concentrate on white-ball cricket and give the County Championship and even tests a miss.
But Tim Wigmore has argued - persuasively - that he is not the first to do so and will not be the last:
If Rashid is exceptional, it is only because he was an international T20 player who had still been attempting to play Test cricket too. Of the 22 players in the last World Twenty20 final only six have played Tests since. And only three - Root, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali - have done so since 2016.
The shift is being driven by money, of course: the huge financial rewards available in T20, especially for players from beyond the sport’s economic big three of Australia, England and India.
With T20 leagues now ubiquitous, there is always a tournament, somewhere, to play in without players needing to be involved in the longer formats.
Rashid has not been forgiven by many for declaring himself 'too tired' to play in the 2016 Championship decider at Lords. There have, too, been plenty of hints that his approach to training is rather 'relaxed'. I am not sure how fondly his Yorkshire team-mates regard him. Under those circumstances and with - for now - a central contract for white-ball, he is probably doing what makes sense for him. But having not been picked up in the IPL, it is a brave move and no wonder it is a one-year experiment.
ReplyDeleteHow welcome he would be if he went back to red-ball with Yorkshire would remain to be seen.