Adil Rashid ‘will be better for the break’

Some further thoughts on the Ashes and Performance squads announced last week:

Although most news reports led on the inclusion of Chris Tremlett and Monty Panesar, a number also flagged up the omissions of Ravi Bopara and Adil Rashid.

The exclusion of Bopara is actually perfectly understandable – he hasn’t played Test cricket since the fourth Test against Australia last year, and awarding him an incremental contract suggests he will be drafted in for the seven one-dayers and two Twenty20s that follow the Tests.

Both of the Sussex allrounders Michael Yardy and Luke Wright are in a similar position to Bopara.

Rashid’s omission from both squads on the other hand is more difficult to explain. National selector Geoff Miller reckons ‘he will be better for the break.’

 

One can only presume that Rashid will be a part of the Lions squad that is due to tour the West Indies early next year. If he’s left out of that one as well, we’ll know that something is seriously wrong.

Alastair Cook and criminality

Much has been made of South African coach Mickey Arthur's comments after the second Twenty20 at Centurion earlier in the week. "They've put a lot of effort into Adil Rashid," Arthur is reported to have said, "but for him to bowl one over I thought was criminal and it showed he doesn't have too much backing".

And yet can you really blame stand-in captain Alastair Cook? He wanted to win the game, not show faith in a bowler. Rashid (above) was smashed for 25 off that one over, including four sixes.

Of far more importance is another question - why was Rashid playing in the first place? The young Yorkshire all-rounder has made his name in Championship cricket, so why pick him in Twenty20s?

After all those years of failures, it seems that the England selectors are still not taking limited overs cricket seriously. Rather than learning about the pressures of international cricket (which was presumably the intention), Rashid's confidence could now be permanently scarred.

Surely we should be picking the best eleven Twenty20 players in the Twenty20 side, not using it as a breeding ground for 'bigger' things?