The Rashid question
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
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Yorkshire allrounder Adil Rashid's bright future should not be jeopardised in order to give him unnecessary experience in India, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Any thoughts of including the young Yorkshire allrounder Adil Rashid to give him experience should have been shelved. A single warm-up match in Baroda, in which presumably the projected Test XI will play, is all the cricket outside the Tests in Ahmedabad and Mumbai so there would be scant opportunity aside from assimilating a little dressing-room atmosphere, for which there will be time aplenty in the future. He is barely out of his teens and with astute handling may provide the fulcrum of England's spin attack for a decade in the future. He must not be rushed. For now his progress has flattened off and his development will be served better on the Lions tour.
In the Independent, Angus Fraser, however, is of the opinion that Rashid deserves a place in the squad to India.
Rashid is certain to be named in England's winter performance squad but the selectors could do worse than pick him for the full squad. Sooner or later they need to find out whether or not he is good enough and history suggests that a legspinner is more likely to trouble India's star-studded batting line-up than an offspinner.
The manner of Michael Vaughan's exclusion is strange - after all, cricketers do not often sit down with selectors to discuss the merits or otherwise of their selection as Vaughan appears to have done - but the decision [to leave him out of the squad] is the right one, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo