Feature

Adil Rashid's non-event Test revives questions about red-ball future

England's legspinner endured the quietest Test since Gareth Batty in 2005, after being lured out of red-ball retirement

Shortly before the fall of India's seventh wicket on Sunday, Adil Rashid touched the ball. He was down at backward square leg, in front of the Warner Stand, and his efforts earned a loud and ironic cheer.
According to Cricviz, it was the 25th time that Rashid had touched the ball in the course of his four days at Lord's - in which time he had neither batted, bowled, nor come close to taking a catch. In fact, his most notable moment came in India's first innings when, at mid-on, he was completely flummoxed by an R Ashwin leading edge that lobbed straight over his head.
By the time England had wrapped up victory in the space of 170.1 overs all told - the third-fastest win in terms of balls in their Test history - Rashid had become the first England player to earn the Thanks For Coming Award since Gareth Batty, another Bradford-born spinner, on this very ground against Bangladesh in 2005, and the 13th overall.
"It's not very often you have a world-class spinner who doesn't bowl a ball in a Test match," said England's captain, Joe Root. "And that's a pleasing thing for us - we still had other options that we didn't have to turn to. It might be completely different when we turn up to Nottingham, but I'm sure he's not minded the way this week has gone."
On the face of it, Rashid didn't seem to mind too much. He was the first player to rush in to give Chris Woakes a high-five when England's man of the match had Ishant Sharma caught at leg gully, and he even left the field clutching one of the stumps as an ironic souvenir of a match in which he could not have contributed less to one of India's most crushing defeats of all time.
And yet, who knows what Rashid was really thinking as he made his way back to the England dressing room. He was, after all, lured back out of red-ball retirement to play in this Test series, having previously admitted that he'd fallen out of love with the format.
Ed Smith, the national selector, says that the "one-off circumstances" of Rashid's falling-out with Yorkshire will only apply for this season, and that he will have to find himself a four-day contract from 2019 onwards if he is to be considered for Test selection going forward.
And yet, this was hardly a contest to convince him that he has been missing out in sacking off the long-form game - particularly when you consider the way in which the County Championship season is divided, with so many games falling in the fickle early-season months of April and May, when legspinners are unlikely to be in high demand.
However, Trevor Bayliss, England's coach, believes that the key component for Rashid's game is confidence, and in spite of his TFC status at Lord's, the experience of being a part of a winning Test team will transcend any other concerns that he might have about his role.
"Rash is a very simple guy," said Bayliss. "He wants to play cricket, whatever format that is. The exact reasons he doesn't want to play four-day cricket, only he really knows. Personally, as I've said to him, I'd like to see him play four-day cricket because I just think it helps in all formats of the game.
"I think he's gone away over the last year or so since he hadn't been playing Test cricket: we needed him to learn a few things and get better at those. In white-ball cricket, one of those things was confidence and being confident in the way he bowls at his best. In one-day cricket over the last 12 to 18 months, we've seen a confidence in him that he didn't have before. What we want for him is to bring that confidence to the red-ball game."
For all that England's seamers did a supreme job at Lord's, there might well have been a temptation to lob the ball to Rashid late in India's innings - just as Root had done in the closing moments of both India's innings at Edgbaston last week. In that game, in spite of being ignored for large tracts of the contest, his variations proved too much of a challenge for India's tail, as he finished the game with the impressive match figures of 3 for 40 in 12 overs.
"From his point of view, he wasn't used in this game," said Bayliss. "You can only do what you're asked to do when you get the opportunity. In that first Test, he did his job."
Assuming the sun returns at Trent Bridge, and that India's batsmen cope rather better with England's quick bowlers than they did in the first two Tests, Rashid can expect his workload to increase as the series wears on - not least if England start to turn half an eye to their next Test challenge in Sri Lanka in November, when Rashid's wiles will doubtless be in higher demand.
But even after the quietest week he can ever hope to experience in England colours, Rashid can still say he enjoyed a better Test than his wristspinning counterpart, Kuldeep Yadav.

Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo @miller_cricket