Rashid drops red ball cricket

Cricket365
February 15, 2018

Yorkshire County Cricket Club have confirmed that leg-spinning all-rounder Adil Rashid will not play red-ball cricket for the club in 2018.

It is understood that Rashid approached Director of Cricket Martyn Moxon to discuss his intention to focus on white ball cricket.

Yorkshire have accepted the player’s wishes but are understandably disappointed to lose the leg-spinner as an asset in the County Championship.

Moxon told yorkshireccc.com: “It’s obviously Adil’s decision.

“From my point of view it’s disappointing because I think Adil has got the ability to play in all three formats of the game, not only at county level, but also at international level. It is Adil’s decision and we have to respect that.

“I’ve said many times that the skills required for the three formats of the game are so different, so it is a challenge for players to play in all three – in international cricket you don’t have many players that do.

“This is the challenge that players and coaches face in domestic cricket. We need our players to be able to play in all three formats predominantly.

“You get the odd specialist, but county setups can’t accommodate specialists at this moment in time. Whether that will happen in the future, we’ll wait and see.

“We really need to get our players skilled up in all three formats. Adil obviously feels he can’t achieve that at the moment.

“He’s been an important member of our white-ball team over the last number of years and is a potential matchwinner. We’re pleased to have him playing white-ball cricket for us and, with his sole focus being on that, you’d expect his skills to improve.”

Rashid himself feels that his future lies in white ball cricket and he is eager to focus on developing those skills.

Speaking from England’s hotel in Hamilton, New Zealand, Rashid said: “It’s for this season coming and to see how it goes.

“At this moment in time in my career, I just feel that white-ball cricket is where I am best, enjoying it most and where I feel I can develop and offer a lot more.

“That was my main thought process. It’s not me saying I’m finished from red ball, it’s just me saying that this summer I’m going to concentrate on white ball and see where that takes me.

“England and Trevor Bayliss were happy with the decision I made and are backing me fully. I’ll use as much of the time I have to work on my white-ball cricket and I’ll just see where that takes me and what lies ahead.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make but it’s something I felt I had to do.

“If I was to go back to playing red ball early in the season, a bit inside me would have said ‘I’m just playing because I have to’ but I had to make that decision and say ‘no, I can’t just go through the motions’.

“If I do just go through the motions, firstly I’d be letting the team down and I’d also be letting myself down because I wouldn’t be giving 100%.

“I’ve made the decision, this summer, to just concentrate on white ball, something which makes me very happy and gives me the best chance of improving my cricket.

“I’m looking to develop my skills and add something to my game that I’ve perhaps never had, because I’ve never had the opportunity to try it.

“Red ball sometimes might have got in the way of trying certain things in the past, especially switching between the two, but this gives me the opportunity to explore and to see what I can do and hopefully become a better player.”