May 2012
Adil Rashid, the 24-year-old leg-spinner, is dropped by Yorkshire for a County Championship Division Two match against Northamptonshire. After a meagre return of nine wickets in six matches, at an average of 49.0, and just 92 runs, including a fifty, the decision is not a difficult one.
His replacement in the side, former England U19 captain Azeem Rafiq, only manages to take two wickets in the match, although helps his cause for future selection with a quickfire 37.
The right-hander instead is sent to play in a pair of Second XI Twenty20 matches in Bingley; he scores 21 and 49, and took a combined 3/33 in his seven overs across the two games.
Rashid went on to play a further four times in the Championship in the season – Yorkshire finished as runners-up to Derbyshire and were promoted – and failed to displace Rafiq from the side; all of his remaining appearances were as a second spinner and useful lower-order batsman.
For a man who had played five One-Day Internationals and the same number of Twenty20 Internationals just three years before, and had been touted by Vic Marks to go on to have a successful Test career in All Out Cricket, this season has seemed like a big step back.
I’ve seen the raw materials on a few occasions in county cricket and he can bowl as good a leg-break as anyone. I’ve seen him beat a good batsman’s outside edge pushing forward on the defensive, on the third or fourth day, and hit off-stump. I think he’s got what it takes to be a Test-level leg-spinner
– Vic Marks, 2009.
After the decision to drop Rashid, the then-president of Yorkshire, current Test Match Special commentator Geoffrey Boycott, was outspoken in criticising the Bradford-born all-rounder, saying: “He’s never progressed, that’s the sad part; I think there are a lot of people in English cricket who wanted to have a leg-spinner playing for England but it’s not about the type of bowling, it’s the quality of bowling. You can’t just pick people because they’re leg-spinners.”
“I don’t think he has been mis-managed,” the former England opener continued; “It’s easy to blame other people isn’t it? You can always say, you didn’t pick me enough or it’s the coaches fault or you picked me too soon for England. You can throw out all the things you want, but in the end, it’s up to you. When you’re out batting, there’s nobody on the end of a phone telling you how to play, you know. You’ve got to do some thinking yourself. You can help people but I’m not a great believer in the culture of blaming others. Why not take responsibility yourself? Put your hand up and say ‘hey, it’s up to me, nobody else’.”
April 2013
After a winter of training in England, Rashid gave an interview to The Independent. In it, he launched into those who had criticised him the year before, spoke of his desire to return to the international fold, admitted he would happily leave Yorkshire if not given opportunities, and openly statesdhis unhappiness with Andrew Gale’s captaincy.
“The captain knows what I can do because I’ve got 200-plus [at this stage the figure was 296] first-class wickets,” he told the paper. “He should have thought: ‘OK, he’s done this in the past, I need to back him.’ If I don’t get that from the captain obviously my confidence is going to go down.”
“Vaughany [Michael Vaughan] used to set defensive fields and just bowl me. He never doubted me and it would just build my confidence, I’d get a wicket, get another, get four, get five. With Galey it’s changed. A couple of overs and that’s it, you’re not bowling again for a long time, and when you do come on to bowl again, it’s for an over. I don’t think it’s fair.”
On being dropped for the Northamptonshire game, Rashid commented: “I didn’t think I’d done much wrong; the weather was poor, I hadn’t bowled a lot of overs, and all of a sudden for me not to be playing for the first team? It was frustrating and upsetting.”
The 2013 season brought little reward with the ball for Rashid; a return of 29 wickets at 46.82 would not have been enough to keep him in the side, but it was with the bat in his hand that he truly excelled. 825 runs at 51.56, including three hundreds and three fifties, proved that the 25-year-old was making progress, and that his decision to work hard on his game the previous winter had been vindicated. International selection was still a long way off, with Graeme Swann ending the 2013 Ashes as leading wicket-taker, and James Tredwell proving an able deputy, but at least Rashid’s county career seemed to be stabilizing.
April 2014
On an early spring day at Taunton, Adil Rashid comes out to bat with Yorkshire on 179/4 against Somerset, who had narrowly avoided relegation at the end of the 2013 season.
The pitch is flat, and Yorkshire are looking to put themselves in a commanding position. Wearing a long-sleeved sweater, his bat – with no stickers and a gleaming face – crafts eighteen boundaries over the next two days, as the diminutive right-hander punches and grafts his way to 108.
This appears to be a different Adil Rashid to the one seen a year before, the one who had criticised his captain in an interview with a national paper, the one who had been unceremoniously dropped and shunted into the Seconds; in an understated way, he goes about his business, and ends the game as the only centurion, despite 1,200 runs being scored in two-and-a-half innings. Dickie Bird suggests that Rashid should be given an England call-up before too long, but the all-rounder retorts he is at least a year off selection in his own mind.
His batting form ends up slightly worse than it had been in 2013. 577 runs at 36.06 suggests the figures of a bowler who can bat a bit, rather than the other way around, but with the ball in hand, the Yorkshireman excels.
49 wickets at 24.81 make him the best English spinner statistically in Division 1 of the County Championship, and second overall behind Warwickshire’s Jeetan Patel. Yorkshire win the Championship at a canter, and Gale singles Rashid out for special praise, saying “He’s a lot more mature as a character. He knows his game and works harder at it than he ever has before. I think he’s more at ease with himself now. He’s not trying so hard to be something that someone else wants him to be. He’s married, has a kid – that makes any guy grow up. He could play five-plus years for England as we saw with Graeme Swann. Leg-spin is one of the toughest things to master, but if the call came I think he’d be ready.”
With Graeme Swann having retired from all forms of cricket, Simon Kerrigan having struggled in his Test debut in August 2013, James Tredwell unable to break into the Kent side and batsman Moeen Ali providing the only spin option for England, there seems to be a gap in the side; Rashid looks ready to fill it.
April 2015
England play their first warm-up match in the Caribbean ahead of a Test series against the West Indies. Part of the twelve-man side that is given a chance to perform in the two-day friendly against St. Kitts and Nevis is Adil Rashid, who is picked alongside James Tredwell in what appears to be a shootout for the spot as a spinner for the First Test, which starts on 13th April in Antigua.
However, George Dobell suggests in his article for ESPNCricinfo that Rashid may not get a game for England, despite his call-up to the sixteen-man squad, on account of poor performances in training, and unfortunately, St. Kitts do not give him much of a chance to showcase his skills; they slump to 53/7 before he gets a chance to bowl.
England will probably play only one spinner – and judging by Adil Rashid’s performance in the nets, that spinner will be James Tredwell – with Moeen Ali expected to join up with the squad ahead of the second Test in Grenada.
After a rank long-hop is smashed for four from his first ball, only one further run is scored off his bowling, and Rashid takes the wicket of the wonderfully-named Quinton Hubert Boatswain to end with figures of 1/5 from three overs. Tredwell’s four balls bring him one wicket for one run, and the shootout ends rather anticlimactically.
However, much to the surprise and disappointment of a vast majority of pundits, Rashid is left out of the side for all three Tests in the West Indies series, and again fails to make the side for the New Zealand series in May.
With James Tredwell and Moeen Ali both struggling across those five Tests, England’s need for a spinner appears greater than ever, and with the number eight spot in the side up for grabs, Rashid is finally given the chance to impress in the First ODI against New Zealand in June.
June 2015
Having heard the media speak consistently for months about the need to play a “positive brand of cricket”, England start aggressively against New Zealand; despite losing Jason Roy to the innings’ first ball at Edgbaston, Joe Root and Eoin Morgan counter-attack brilliantly with a partnership of 121 in 15.3 overs.
However, it seems as though the new England, with a license to play their shots, is struggling again, as a mid-innings slump sees the score on 202 when the sixth wicket falls, bringing Rashid to the crease to join Jos Buttler.
Despite playing second fiddle to his partner throughout his innings, the all-rounder hits a remarkable 69 off 50, which includes seven fours and two sixes, in a display of innovative batting, before being dismissed in the final over. Having come in after 30 overs, the run-rate with Rashid at the crease has been just under ten for England, and they motor to their highest-ever ODI score of 408/9.
Not content with his batting effort, the leg-spinner is then brought into the attack in the twelfth over of the innings, with Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor at the crease. Rather than being phased by their attacking strokeplay, Rashid relishes the challenge. Given the opportunity to toss the ball up and force the batsmen to create pace, Rashid has Williamson caught at long-off in his second over, and manages to hold up an end with great ease.
In fact, his ten-over spell seals the game for England. Having kept his economy rate around six throughout the chase, he then snares Mitchell Santner and the dangerous Luke Ronchi with consecutive balls, both googlies, before dismissing Matt Henry in his final over. This makes him only the second English spin-bowler (alongside Graeme Hick) to have scored a half-century and taken four or more wickets in the same ODI.
A spell of 10-0-55-4 gets the nation excited. His variations and flight are impressive, and there is a huge deal of hype about the all-rounder’s performance. With the Ashes looming, another four games like this could cement his spot in the England side for the Cardiff Test in July, and thus complete his three-year transformation from the Yorkshire Second XI to a Test Match against Australia.
The man once considered a maverick leg-spinner who could throw a bat around is now comparatively a controlled master of his craft, and he richly deserves this success after the remarkable transformation he has undertaken.
