Exclusive: Adil Rashid turns back on first-class cricket after agreeing white ball-only Yorkshire contract

Adil Rashid has become the first member of England’s successful one-day team to turn his back on red-ball cricket, saying he will not play in the Championship for Yorkshire this season and prompting fears others could follow suit.

Telegraph Sport exclusively revealed that Rashid has agreed a new one-year contract with Yorkshire just to play 50 and 20-over cricket. The club later confirmed the leg-spinner’s decision with Rashid also releasing a statement from New Zealand where he is currently on tour with England. It is understood he only formally told England on Thursday of his decision.

“It wasn’t an 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 said. “If I do just go through the motions, firstly I’d be letting the team down and I’d also be letting myself down because I wouldn’t be giving 100 per cent. I’ve made the decision, this summer, to just concentrate on white ball, something which makes me very happy and gives me the best chance of improving my cricket.”

England one-day captain Eoin Morgan has not played first-class cricket since 2015 but is still contracted for all forms of the game for Middlesex. It just suits both sides to not pick him in Championship cricket.

Rashid remains an important member of the Yorkshire team and would have played the early-season Championship matches as well as the title run-in during September. Rashid’s wickets played a big part in Yorkshire’s title wins of 2014 and 2015.

The club will now worry some of its other players could follow suit, with David Willey and Liam Plunkett also members of England’s one-day set-up and increasingly looked at as limited-over specialists.

For the counties this is a real warning with other players certain to be thinking over similar decisions. No longer can the counties rely on being a player’s main employer. Alex Hales and Jos Buttler are two players who may also decide their Test hopes have gone and instead decide to pursue lucrative Twenty20 contracts instead.

Last month, Yorkshire, perhaps aware of Rashid’s intentions, demanded a meeting with the ECB over how to fight the threat of global Twenty20 leagues taking the best players from the county game.

The club believes the ECB’s new T20 competition will only increase the likelihood of players concentrating on those skills rather than red-ball cricket.

The timing from Rashid is odd. He missed out on deals in the IPL and Pakistan Super League recently and has agreed a pro-rata contract with Yorkshire which, Telegraph Sport understands, is more than a £50,000 reduction on what he earns now because he will only be available for 26 days.

Rashid has become a vital member of England’s one-day side. He has taken more wickets, 84, than any other bowler in 50-over cricket since the last World Cup.

With this decision, Rashid has shown he has given up on playing Test cricket for England again at the age of 29. But having taken 13 wickets in England’s first two Tests in India last winter, Rashid became ever more dispirited and ever more expensive, conceding runs at the unsustainable rate of almost four an over. If he had had Shane Warne’s head on his shoulders, and his hunter’s instinct, Rashid might have taken almost as many wickets as Warne because he has a fine leg-break and a far better googly.

In his 10 Tests, Rashid finished with 38 wickets at 42 runs per wicket, playing his last Test in India 14 months ago and leaving England with the impression he did not have the hunger for the long-term battle that is a Test match.

“It’s obviously Adil’s decision,” said Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire’s director of cricket. “From my point of view it’s disappointing because I think Adil has got the ability to play in all three formats of the game, not only at county level, but also at international level. It is Adil’s decision and we have to respect that.

“We need our players to be able to play in all three formats predominantly. You get the odd specialist, but county set-ups can’t accommodate specialists at this moment in time. Whether that will happen in the future, we’ll wait and see. We really need to get our players skilled up in all three formats. Adil obviously feels he can’t achieve that at the moment.”