It is telling that no one has said his first class stats, how he has bowled for Yorkshire in the last year or so. How have his lions performances been?
What about the time when he... (Add specific brilliant performance against a quality side)
No one can justify Rashid's selection through performance. I recognise he is a decent player but I think he isn't going to offer more than moeen does.
Utter rubbish, you ought to know better.
Firstly, on the strange case of Moeen Ali...England, post Graeme Swann, decided that they didn't have a frontline spinner who was worthy of selection of the 2014 series with Sri Lanka and India, so picked ALi as a batsman, figuring they would fiddle a few overs out of him. In that series, he batted at six (with Ben Stokes, in as a seamer, at eight) and batted just about well enough to be given an extended run in the side. Then he took a couple of bags against a demoralised India side, and the clamour for him to be deemed a frontline test spinner began. He forgot about his batting, got moved up and down the order in both Test and One Day sides, and was generally treated as the eleventh name on the team sheet. Indeed, he has a claim to being the second worst treated England player of recent times, behind YJB (though at least he was always in the team). Is Ali test class? As a bowler, clearly not - he is a bit better than the Alan Border "give us a few overs to rest the qwuicks" role, but he is nowhere near good enough to be a front line bowler. As a batsman? I'd say probably not, though I feel slightly sorry for the lad when I say it, because he hasn't had a proper run at it.
So, the question becomes, do we have a guy decent enough to be selected as that frontline spinner? Various names have been mentioned in recent times - discounting Samit Patel, who is similar to Ali in that he is a batting all rounder at best, you're left with what might be termed "the veterans" - Tredwell and Batty - who I would prefer to avoid simply because we should be trying to move things forward, and then a handful of younger players - Borthwick (though most people want to select him as a batsman), Rashid, Crane and Ansari.
Of those, who is the most likely to perform a spinner's primary function and bowl a side out on day five to win a test? Well, that'd be Rashid (for now - I suspect Crane might surpass him in 2-3 years time). He may be less adept at the secondary function, that of blocking up an end on the first and second days (though he has improved markedly in that regard) but lets face it, we have four top class quicks already to bowl the majority of those overs, even before you consider the possibility of playing with six bowling options.
Stats? His first class record over the past four years is better than any other contenders, and is exclusively in division one of the Championship. Note that that "better" applies to his overall record" - he's at last as good a bat as Chris Woakes and far better than Stuart Broad, and a very decent fielder. Impressive performances? The fivefer on Test debut, rolling Pakistan on an absolute road, nearly setting up the most improbably of wins doesn't count? Tell me one better performance from Moeen in 40 tests...
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Topic: Rashid .. (Read 13525 times)