Snubbed Rashid told to develop his game with Yorkshire

The county recently asked England to outline their plans for Rashid amid fears the leg-spinner is not getting enough overs under his belt.

Rashid bowled just 306.4 overs in first-class cricket last year, prompting Yorkshire's director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon to ask England how they intend to manage Rashid's development.

Now Moxon has received his answer, with England team director Andy Flower yesterday conceding the 21-year-old will benefit from more matches for Yorkshire.

"I think it will do him a lot of good to go back and play a lot of cricket for Yorkshire," said Flower. "It will help him to work out his own game, to work out what works for him, to understand his game better and to come back into the England side, whenever that might be, a more knowledgeable and tougher cricketer.

"We've had Adil on various tours recently, starting with the West Indies a year ago, and he's been give little snippets of exposure to international competition. Now it's important that he gets a few more games under his belt."

England have not handled Rashid at all well since he was called up for the West Indies series in 2008-09.

He spent most of that trip as a glorified drinks waiter, missed important County Championship games last summer to take part in the Twenty20 World Cup and was also left kicking his heels during the tour to South Africa.

Rashid's confidence was further dented when he was diverted to the England Performance squad after conceding 25 runs from his solitary over during a Twenty20 international at Centurion Park in November.

Now he has been snubbed for next month's Test and one-day series in Bangladesh in favour of the Kent off-spinner James Tredwell and will, instead, turn out for the England Lions in the United Arab Emirates.

Rashid played only seven of Yorkshire's 16 County Championship games last summer, bowling a mere 242.2 overs.

In contrast, he bowled 638.1 overs in 2008 and finished the country's joint second-highest wicket-taker with 65 at 31.83.

The player acknowledges he can only benefit from regular cricket. Speaking in South Africa recently, Rashid said: "I'm still developing and it's all about just trying to play as many games as possible."

Andrew Flintoff looks unlikely to reverse his decision to retire from Test cricket despite announcing his interest in playing first-class fixtures for Lancashire next season.

He believes he can recover sufficiently from knee surgery to compete in four-day fixtures, having previously stated he would focus on limited-overs cricket.

But sources close to the player have played down reports that he is targeting a place in the 2010-11 Ashes.