Adil Rashid

At 36 years old, Adil Rashid has this physical status:

Rashid showed promise from a young age: Terry Jenner spotted him as a 14-year-old, and, in early July 2005, aged 17, he took 6–13 for Yorkshire's Academy (youth) team. A few days later he hit 111 for Yorkshire Cricket Board Under-17s against their Cheshire equivalents in the Under-17s County Championship.

In 2006, he played a number of games for Yorkshire Second XI, making four successive centuries. This form, combined with a calf injury to Darren Lehmann, earned him the chance to make his first-class debut.

Rashid made his county cricket debut against Warwickshire at North Marine Road, Scarborough, as a replacement for injured overseas batsman Darren Lehmann. In the second innings he bowled a magnificent 6/67 to rip through Warwickshire's middle order and win the match for Yorkshire. Rashid was then included in the England Under-19s Test squad for their series against India Under-19s. Making his debut for the side in the first Test at Canterbury, he scored 13 and 23 runs and took one wicket. In the second Test, at Taunton, he produced a dominant all-round display, scoring 114 and 48 and claiming 8/157 and 2/45. He also played in the third Test at the Denis Compton Oval in Shenley, but made less of an impression, only taking three wickets and scoring 15 and 12 runs.

From mid-August until the end of the season, he held down a regular spot in the Yorkshire side. He continued to impress, taking 4/96 against Middlesex at Scarborough and scoring 63, his maiden first-class half-century, against Nottinghamshire at Headingley as part of a fourth-wicket stand of 130 with Craig White to dig Yorkshire out of a hole from 42/3 before helping to bowl out Nottinghamshire's tail to win the match for Yorkshire. Rashid also featured in a two-day "spin match" held by the England and Wales Cricket Board, a programme which would simulate different match-based scenarios to develop young spin bowlers.

During the winter, Rashid suffered from a stress fracture in his back and missed England Under-19s' tour of Malaysia, but he recovered well enough to be picked for the 2006–07 England A tour of Bangladesh. Despite unimpressive performances, he was tipped by Yorkshire teammate Jason Gillespie to play international cricket for England in the future.

Rashid started the English summer at Lord's, playing for Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) against the 2006 champion county, Sussex. In his County Championship game of the season, at The Oval against Surrey a few days later, he hit 86 in the first innings, putting on 190 with Jacques Rudolph for the sixth wicket. This established a new partnership record for the sixth wicket for Yorkshire against Surrey, surpassing a mark that had stood since 1902. At the end of April he continued to impress with bowling figures of 5/88 against Durham at Headingley. Due to his form he was picked to play for England Lions in a tour match against India.

Rashid was considered to play for England's Under-19 side again in their series against Pakistan, but his Yorkshire coach Martyn Moxon showed displeasure at the idea of Rashid being pulled away from county cricket. The selectors decided that as Rashid had progressed to the next level of cricket, having appeared for England Lions, and therefore he shouldn't be pulled out of county cricket to play for England Under-19s. In continuing to play county cricket, he scored his maiden first-class century, 108 against Worcestershire at Kidderminster, and another half-century against Warwickshire.

Over the course of the 2007 English cricket season, Rashid scored 837 with a batting average of 44.05 and took 43 wickets with a bowling average of 42.16 across all first-class matches. He took the most wickets of any Yorkshire player and scored the fourth-most runs. He won several awards in 2007 for his strong form. In June 2007 he won both the YCCSA Young Player of the Year Award for 2006 and the Neil Lloyd Young Cricketer of the Year Award for 2006. On 9 September Rashid was named 2007 Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year, while on 24 September he was awarded the title of PCA Young Player of the Year.

In October 2007, Rashid was named in the "England Performance Programme squad", to train at home and in India during the 2007–08 winter.

In January 2008, Rashid was named in the England Lions squad for the 2007–08 Duleep Trophy in India. He played two games for the tournament and took six wickets. For the second season in a row he was also named in the Marylebone Cricket Club squad to play against the champion county, this time Sussex. He also retained his place in the England Performance Programme squad.

There was concern early in the season that Rashid's bowling was losing some of its variety as it seemed his batting was taking precedence, but he then took career-best bowling figures of 7/107 against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. He followed this up with hauls of 5/95 against Lancashire and 7/136 against Sussex. Rashid finished the season with 62 wickets, Yorkshire's leading wicket-taker for the second year in a row.

At the end of the year, Rashid was included in the English national team for their tour of India, though he wasn't expected to be any chance of playing a match for England, only being on the tour for the experience. He was then included in England's squad for their following tour of the West Indies, where he was part of England's team for a tour match against a Saint Kitts and Nevis team. National selector Geoff Miller, described Rashid's selection at the age of 20 in the following terms:

Continued domestic career

Following his unsuccessful winter abroad, Rashid returned to playing county cricket with Yorkshire in the 2010 summer. He immediately showed that he still had the potential to return to the English national team, showing his batting skills with an impressive innings against Warwickshire in his first match of the season. His self-confidence returned throughout the season and he had several impressive performances with both ball and bat in the county championship, finishing the season with 732 runs at 45.75 and 57 wickets at 31.29, as well as taking 26 wickets in the 2010 Twenty20 Cup, the most of the Yorkshire bowlers and the fourth-most overall. Despite his strong performances throughout the season he was still overlooked by English selectors, being left out of their home series against Bangladesh and the squad for the 2010–11 Ashes series in favour of Monty Panesar.

Not having been selected to play for England over the 2010–11 winter, Rashid instead played for South Australia in the 2010–11 KFC Twenty20 Big Bash. He played a useful role in the team alongside fellow spinner Nathan Lyon, and finished the season with 10 wickets, one behind the tournament's leaders Lyon and Pat Cummins, as South Australia won the tournament. Following the Big Bash, Rashid was selected to play for England Lions on a tour of the West Indies, during which they played in the local first-class competition, the 2010–11 Regional Four Day Competition.

Rashid started the 2011 season well by taking 6/77 and 5/37 in Yorkshire's opening match against Worcestershire, but overall he struggled for form, and conceded the worst bowling figures of his career, and the third-worst ever for Yorkshire, when he bowled no wicket for 187 runs against Sussex. His poor form continued into the 2012 season, and he found himself dropped from Yorkshire's team for the first time in his county career. This came as a result of his worst ever start to a county season, taking nine wickets at 49.00 in his first six matches. Yorkshire's president Geoffrey Boycott lamented that Rashid had not appeared to progress at all since he started playing county cricket, and said that Rashid needed to take responsibility for his poor performances. In ten first-class matches in 2012 he took just 16 wickets at an average of 41 and made 129 runs at 16.12, his decline meaning he was no longer even asked to play for England Lions anymore.

Just hours before the start of the 2013 county season, Rashid was quoted by the Independent as saying that if his 2013 season didn't go well he'd request to go on loan from Yorkshire to a different county, which forced Yorkshire to deny that there was any rift between Rashid and the club. Martyn Moxon, then Yorkshire's director of cricket, said that the interview had been in January, months before the start of the season and that there hadn't been any issues. Rashid also showed that his poor form was behind him as he started the season with his highest first-class score, a 180 against Somerset. He followed this up with two more centuries, one against Warwickshire and a second against Somerset, taking his average for the county season up to that point above 200. In 2014 Rashid continued to improve his bowling, particularly in limited overs cricket, bowling career-best figures of 5/33 in a one-day match against Hampshire.

In April 2022, he was bought by the Northern Superchargers for the 2022 season of The Hundred.

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