Adil Rashid chooses to play only white-ball cricket for Yorkshire

England all-rounder Adil Rashid has chosen to play only white-ball cricket for Yorkshire during the 2018 season, thereby putting his first-class career to a pause. The leg-spinner plays a big role in his national team’s limited-overs squads, which is why he wants to focus only on white-ball cricket, at the domestic level as well. Rashid feels that it is best to focus on what he is good at, rather getting distracted by a format he doesn’t suit him.

A decent limited-overs performer

The 29-year-old has played 59 One-Day Internationals and 27 T20s for England and has also been included in the squad for the ongoing T20 tri-series against Australia and New Zealand. In the 50-over format, the Yorkshire born Rashid has 422 runs and 87 wickets, while in the shortest format, he has 38 runs and 22 wickets.

“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,” espncricinfo quoted Rashid as saying.

“It wasn’t any 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’,” he added.

Memorable domestic and international debuts

It has also been learnt that the Yorkshire team wants the all-rounder to play red-ball cricket too, and tried to convince him, but failed. Rashid first burst onto the scene with six wickets against Warwickshire on his first-class debut in 2006 at Scarborough.

His international debut is also memorable, as he grabbed a five-wicket haul against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi. He has been a consistent performer for Yorkshire over the past decade and was the architect of their back-to-back wins in 2014 and 15.