Just 19, and already compared to Warne. "Just 708 Test wickets to go, then" © Getty Images

Andrew Longmore speaks to Martin Moxon in the Sunday Times about Yorkshire’s wonderfully gifted Adil Rashid. Moxon, Rashid’s coach, is determined to protect his young legspinner, concerned that media hype could affect his potential.

“That’s what we’re trying to do with Adil. To create pressure on the batsman, you need to land the leg-spinner consistently. That’s what I have been most pleased about: he has bowled consistent line and length while still spinning the ball.”

So concerned are Yorkshire that the next Monty Panesar/Shane Warne/Mushtaq Ahmed (delete as applicable) should develop quietly and methodically through his first full season of county cricket that they have thrown a protective blanket around him reminiscent of Ryan Giggs in his early days at Old Trafford. Given the history of leg-spinning prodigies in England in recent decades, the policy is understandable, but it is probably unnecessary. Rashid can look after himself in the interview room as readily as he can on the field, and the more exposure he can get to the world he might be asked to inhabit sooner rather than later, the better prepared he will be.

Rashid also sought the counsel of Shane Warne, who he faced in Yorkshire’s Championship draw against Hampshire, when Moxon booked in an afternoon’s coaching in Warne’s back garden. But perhaps the most revealing comment comes from one of the batsman who faced Rashid:

“I can’t remember him [Rashid] bowling one rank bad ball,” says Michael Brown, whose second consecutive championship century kept Hampshire in the game. “Traditionally this pitch hasn’t got a lot of bounce, but he gets more bounce than Warney. Yet his control was so good and he worked the pitch out pretty quickly, bowling a little slower. Usually with a leggie you can wait for the bad ball. Here it was a question of limiting your mode of dismissal and trying to rotate the strike. Warney is always on about that and how irritating it is for a bowler. I tried to work him into the covers or behind square on the leg side, but there were no balls to release the pressure. For a kid of 19 . . . ”

May 4, 2007

Bird comes home to roost

Posted on 05/04/2007 in Yorkshire

Hold the back page – Dickie Bird is making his umpiring comeback. Bird is turning out for a celebrity match organised by the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) at his home ground of Headingley. Let’s hope Sir Geoffrey doesn’t turn up or else there could be a real war of the white roses for the affections of Shilpa Shetty, who’s inevitably making an appearance.

And let’s hope also neither of them, nor star guest Amitabh Buchan, do a Richard Gere – hmm, pleasant thought... The signs aren’t good, though. The press release expects the match to be “action-packed and laced with its fair share of gags and sporting misdemeanours.” So there.

The IIFA celebrity team are captained by pin-up boy Saif Ali Khan, and includes Kapil Dev, Mohammed Azharuddin, Zayed Khan, Suneil Shetty, and Abhishek Bachchan. They will play a UK celebrity cricket team, again with a mix of as-yet-undisclosed players and celebrities.

Tickets are more expensive than for any county game, though – at £22 for adults and £12 for children – but it’s all for a good cause. The match takes place on Friday 8 June.

April 5, 2007

All eyes on remodeled Rashid

Posted on 04/05/2007 in Yorkshire

In The Times, John Westerby looks at Adil Rashid, one of Yorkshire – and England’s – most exciting young prospects:-

At the age of 18, Rashid caused more than a few flutters towards the end of last season by taking 25 wickets in his first five championship matches for Yorkshire, as well as scoring useful runs. Jason Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler and a Yorkshire teammate, described him as the best young cricketer in England.

This year, his progress will be watched closely and Rashid is aware that he has given himself a tough act to follow. And all the more so since, having suffered a stress fracture to his back this winter, he has had to learn to bowl with a remodelled action.

February 16, 2007

Yorkshire chat with Donald

Posted on 02/16/2007 in Yorkshire

Allan Donald, the former South Africa fast bowler, has been interviewed in Cape Town for the job of director of cricket at Yorkshire.

Donald joins Dean Jones among the front runners for the post. Former England and Yorkshire fast bowler Chris Old, who now runs a fish-and-chip shop in Cornwall, has also applied.

January 4, 2007

Yorkshire in a pickle

Posted on 01/04/2007 in Yorkshire

It has been a winter to forget for Yorkshire, and the Yorkshire Post has an excellent round-up (albeit one which makes depressing reading).

With just two months to go before pre-season training, Yorkshire have no director of cricket; they have no captain; their star batsman wants to leave; a number of players are fed up; and no one appears to have much of a clue what is going on.

The club are in an almighty pickle – and it is a predicament largely of their own creation.
Following Chris Adams's decision to pull out of a four-year contract to become captain-manager (some say Yorkshire were unlucky; others claim the full story has yet to emerge), the club are already well behind their rivals.

December 19, 2006

Freed prisoner given county membership

Posted on 12/19/2006 in Yorkshire

Mirza Tahir Hussain, who spent 18 years on death row in Pakistan, has received an early Christmas present from Yorkshire CCC. The cricket fan has been given club membership for the 2007 season.

October 17, 2006

Two leggies at Leeds- whatever next?

Posted on 10/17/2006 in Yorkshire

David Byas is not seen as a gambler. But he took arguably the biggest punt of his time as director of cricket when, on August 16, he named his Championship team to face Kent. Byas included not one but two young legspinners, Adil Rashid, aged 18, and 20-year-old Mark Lawson. Together they were about o give Yorkshire’s Championship season a hell of a rip. In the event the weather wrecked the Kent match but in the next three games the charismatic pair shared 33 wickets in rain-affected near misses against Middlesex and Durham and a crucial win over Notts. But, if Rashid and Lawson inevitably hogged the headlines during the successful survival battle, the Championship season had been on an upward curve since the Twenty20 Cup. Beforehand the batting of Darren Lehmann and Anthony McGrath had been the only redeeming feature. After reaching the quarter-finals Yorkshire won three times in the Championship, the batting improved, the bowling was sharper and Rashid and Lawson arrived. Now for the bad news. One-day form was poor and Lehmann has departed, after ending his seventh season with an astonishing 339 against Durham. For Yorkshire Lehmann scored 8,871 runs at 68. Who says no one is indispensable?

Andrew Collomosse The Wisden Cricketer

Two leggies at Leeds- whatever next?

Posted on 10/17/2006 in Yorkshire

David Byas is not seen as a gambler. But he took arguably the biggest punt of his time as director of cricket when, on August 16, he named his Championship team to face Kent. Byas included not one but two young legspinners, Adil Rashid, aged 18, and 20-year-old Mark Lawson. Together they were about o give Yorkshire’s Championship season a hell of a rip. In the event the weather wrecked the Kent match but in the next three games the charismatic pair shared 33 wickets in rain-affected near misses against Middlesex and Durham and a crucial win over Notts. But, if Rashid and Lawson inevitably hogged the headlines during the successful survival battle, the Championship season had been on an upward curve since the Twenty20 Cup. Beforehand the batting of Darren Lehmann and Anthony McGrath had been the only redeeming feature. After reaching the quarter-finals Yorkshire won three times in the Championship, the batting improved, the bowling was sharper and Rashid and Lawson arrived. Now for the bad news. One-day form was poor and Lehmann has departed, after ending his seventh season with an astonishing 339 against Durham. For Yorkshire Lehmann scored 8,871 runs at 68. Who says no one is indispensable?

Andrew Collomosse The Wisden Cricketer

September 21, 2006

McGrath marches on

Posted on 09/21/2006 in Yorkshire

Anthony McGrath is not a man to blow his own trumpet. So it is worth taking note when he says: “I’m a far better player now than when I last played Test cricket three years ago.” County bowlers would not argue with that, though the England selectors seem unmoved. McGrath averaged almost 60 in 2005 and by late August this year had amassed another 1,182 firstclass runs at 62. As an allrounder he played four Tests and made the last of his 14 one-day international appearances in 2004. McGrath attributes his consistent excellence to hard work.

“There’s no magic formula. I’m more experienced and I’ve learned from my mistakes. My game has developed in four-day and one-day cricket and, as one of the senior pros, I know it’s important that I score runs consistently.” And his chances of an England recall? “I don’t seem to be in the selectors’ thoughts at the moment but it’s always in the back of my mind.”

Andrew Collomosse, The Wisden Cricketer

August 23, 2006

Double dilemma

Posted on 08/23/2006 in Yorkshire

Who says Yorkshiremen have an ingrained suspicion of legspin? No sooner had the England Under-19 allrounder Adil Rashid announced himself with debut figures of 6 for 67 against Warwickshire than Mark Lawson was firing in a career-best 6 for 150 against Hampshire. The two Yorkshire Academy products, both England Under-19 players, are the first authentic leggies to play for the White Rose since Eddie Leadbeater left for Warwickshire in 1956. Yet it would seem their emergence presages a selection dilemma in the not too distant future unless the director of cricket David Byas opts to play them in tandem. Ian Dews who, as manager of the academy, has nurtured the pair’s precocious talents, does not rule out the idea.

“If you have two bowlers capable of taking six wickets, why not play them both? And these two are different animals anyway. Mark is confident, in-your-face with a lot of variation. He looks to make things happen whereas Adil will sit in there and bowl all day.

“And, of course, Adil is a top-class batsman. Remember, he was brought into the side at Scarborough to replace Darren Lehmann as the batter who could bowl a bit of spin.”

The Wisden Cricketer, Andrew Collomosse

August 9, 2006

Headingley to host 2nd XI final

Posted on 08/09/2006 in Yorkshire

Headingley will host the 2nd XI Trophy final between Yorkshire and Warwickshire on Monday September 4. Yorkshire secured their place with a nine-wicket win over Nottinghamshire.

July 30, 2006

Players thrive on steep earning curve

Posted on 07/30/2006 in Derbyshire

Steve James, the former Glamorgan and England opener, has revealed that the average salary for a county player is around £40,000. Surrey top the pay league, with their players earning an average salary of £60,000, and that excludes the bumper earnings of their overseas recruits. Yorkshire are at the bottom of the pay league, with an average salary of £30,000.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, James's article has gone a long way to dispelling the belief that county cricketers are sports paupers. While they still might to be able to hold a candle to any footballers in the Premier League, their pay is not as bad as it once was.

Click here for the full story.

July 25, 2006

Hallmark leaves Bradford club in the lurch

Posted on 07/25/2006 in Yorkshire

A historic cricket club which provides access to the sport for deprived youngsters claims it has been left £6,000 out of pocket after one of Bradford's biggest firms pulled out of a deal over a new ground.

Daisy Hill Cricket Club has been searching for new premises for several years after continued vandal attacks on its ground, off Lynfield Drive, Bradford.

But, after spending thousands of pounds on architects, surveyors and planning fees over the past two years, club chairman Graham Langton says their hopes have been dashed by the site owners, greeting cards manufacturer Hallmark.

Click here for the full story

July 21, 2006

PA problems

Posted on 07/21/2006 in Yorkshire

County outgrounds often throw up some of the best stories and the current match between Yorkshire and Warwickshire at Scarborough is had its fair share. The PA system has been the main talking point - literally - as the second day crowd was treated to updates from a nearby bowls tournament.

The Times reports: "After broadcasting a conversation between engineers on Wednesday, the PA system was again beset by gremlins. This time spectators were treated to announcements from a bowls tournament nearby. The problem was traced to a strong aerial on the pavilion and the local authority was called in."

July 5, 2006

Never in Fred's day

Posted on 07/05/2006 in Yorkshire

	© Getty Images

There have been many articles devoted to Fred Trueman, who died on Saturday, but a slightly different one appears in today’s Daily Telegraph by Simon Heffer, one of their political commentators.

Heffer offers a slightly left-of-centre insight to the man:

“Fred was rarely injured and missed Test matches usually only because, in his profoundly English bloody-mindedness, he had been caustically rude to someone in officialdom. His successors, none of whom has yet reached his league, spend more time recuperating from strains and stress fractures than they do engaging the enemy.”

He also trots out some anecdotes, but not necessarily the ones used in most other obituaries:

“Trueman berated some Yorkshire batsmen for finding Wes Hall, the equally terrifying West Indian, so hard to play. When he, too, was knocked over by Hall, one of his team-mates had the nerve to point out that it wasn't so easy as it looked. ‘Ah'd 'ave been all right,’ retorted Fred, ‘if I 'adn't slipped on that pile of s--- tha'd dropped out there’.”

But it is his conclusion which not only sums up the man, but also the way that the world has changed:

“In his way, he had his cult of celebrity, but this was not a man who would be worshipped for the sunglasses he wore or the women he stepped out with; all he wanted to be judged by, and would be judged by, was what he could do on the field of play. He died on a day when hideously overpaid grown men wept over having lost a game of football, and one of them assisted his side by engaging in the simian action of stamping on the private parts of a rival, and being sent off. They never did that in Fred's day.”

July 4, 2006

Blain set to disappear from Yorkshire

Posted on 07/04/2006 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire will release their seamer John Blain at the end of the summer. And they will let him go on loan to another club for the rest of this season, if he wants to do so.

Their director of cricket, David Byas, says that Blain, 27, has been squeezed out by the younger players. "With several promising youngsters pushing hard for first team places, John is not going to figure in our future plans,” said Byas. "But we are very keen to assist him to continue his career elsewhere."

Blain has rarely appeared in Yorkshire’s first-team since he arrived from Northamptonshire two years ago.

June 21, 2006

Twenty20 sell out at Old Trafford

Posted on 06/21/2006 in Lancashire

Lancashire have announced a record sell-out for their Twenty20 Roses match on Friday, July 7.

There will be a capacity 15,500 crowd for the visit of Yorkshire, beating Lancashire’s previous highest Twenty20 attendance of 14,800 – also against Yorkshire three years ago.

June 20, 2006

Ugandan support for Yorkshire

Posted on 06/20/2006 in Yorkshire

Your newsagent is wearing a Yorkshire T-shirt – nothing too surprising, especially if you are in Leeds. But David Ujemba is an 18-year-old shop worker in Kampala, Uganda. He knows nothing about cricket and has no idea about Yorkshire.

Most Ugandans wear imported second-hand clothes – huge bales arrive daily from the UK, US and other developed countries and are known locally as ‘mivumba’. David bought his T-shirt for 4,000 Ugandan shillings (£1.25). Although he knows little about its origins, David is proud of his Yorkshire connection as he goes about selling newspapers in a suburb close to Lake Victoria.

Kevin O’Connor, The Wisden Cricketer

Move over, Boycott

Posted on 06/20/2006 in Yorkshire

Darren Lehmann is the only player of recent vintage in Yorkshire’s Greatest XI, chosen by readers of the Yorkshire Post. Few would argue with the selection. In his first six seasons, three of them curtailed by international commitments, the South Australian made 7,165 first-class runs at 66. And he started the current campaign with another 533 from six innings and some sizzling one-day knocks.

Anthony McGrath was a young professional when Lehmann first appeared in 1997, since when he has seen plenty of the maestro. “Sometimes his batting takes your breath away,” says McGrath, who also made a bright start this year. “He has been the perfect overseas player because as well as producing the goods out in the middle, he is a tremendous influence behind the scenes. Soon after he had been named in the all-time side, an old member went up to him and said: ‘You are the best player I have ever seen.’ That says it all.”

For the record, Yorkshire’s Greatest XI is: Hutton, Sutcliffe, Leyland, Lehmann, Close, Hirst, Rhodes, Binks, Trueman, Bowes, Verity.
Andrew Collomosse, The Wisden Cricketer

May 8, 2006

Yorkshire cut OAP admission prices

Posted on 05/08/2006 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire have announced that they are dropping admission prices for senior citizens from £15 to £10 per day with effect from the next home game, Yorkshire v Lancashire in the County Championship.

The decision was taken following a series of complaints from pensioners who have attended matches at Headingley in recent weeks. Last season, pensioners paid just £6 on the gate to watch the county. However, because the club do not currently offer any concession to retired supporters who become full members of the club, it was decided to also scrap the reduction on the gate for pensioners resulting in an increase from £6 to £15 per game.

“I have acknowledged that the club were wrong to levy such a large increase on such an important group of supporters at a time when we are keen to attract more people into our stadium,” Stewart Regan, the county’s CEO. “In my experience, both in business and in sport, pensioners are always given a concession and as such, we must come into line. Given our current financial position, however, we cannot hold the prices at last year’s level. I have therefore agreed with the board that we will reduce prices to £10 per day for pensioners paying on the gate.”

April 23, 2006

Gillespie delays Yorks debut

Posted on 04/23/2006 in Yorkshire

Jason Gillespie delayed his planned debut for English country side Yorkshire against Derbyshire on Sunday because of travel weariness.

The Australian joined up with his new Yorkshire team-mates at Headingley but did not play after arriving from Bangladesh Saturday.

"I had hoped to get stuck in straight away but having just played in back-to-back Test matches before some long flights I did not feel it was the best preparation," said Gillespie.

"After talking to Craig White and Darren Lehmann I decided to get over my tiredness and make absolutely sure I am fully recovered in time for Yorkshire's Championship match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston on Wednesday."

Gillespie said he accepted that his days in Australia's one-day side were probably over but he felt that he still had a lot to offer at Test level.

"I would love to be a part of the Ashes series but that is a long way off yet and at the moment I am concentrating solely on taking wickets for Yorkshire."

April 12, 2006

Yorkshire agree to release Silverwood

Posted on 04/12/2006 in Yorkshire

Middlesex have finally completed the signing Chris Silverwood after Yorkshire agreed to release him. Silverwood, 30, has signed a two-year deal.

A Yorkshire statement confirmed they had agreed to release him "by mutual consent".