Yorkshire CCC spinner Jafer Chohan has first-class ambitions

At 22, he is skilful, ambitious and hungry to do well.

“I want to be the most complete cricketer I can be,” said Chohan, whose career to date has been confined to 34 T20 appearances - 30 for Yorkshire in the Vitality Blast; four for Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League.

“The pinnacle of cricket is playing Test cricket, and that’s an aim of mine, 100 per cent.

“Test cricket is as good as it gets; I think all the best players in the world have done it.

“If you look at Mala (Dawid Malan), Jonny (Bairstow), they’ve played a lot of Test cricket and have unbelievable first-class records.

"Even Rash (Adil Rashid), who’s an unbelievable white-ball bowler, he’s played a lot of first-class cricket, played a lot of Test cricket, and it’s definitely something that I’d love to do.”

Might the next few weeks bring Chohan his chance in the first-class game?

The next four County Championship rounds are with the controversial Kookaburra, the Australian ball that was brought into county cricket in an effort to counteract dibbly-dobbly medium-pacers and to encourage spinners and faster bowlers to develop the necessary skills to play Test cricket.

“I'm desperate to play red-ball cricket for Yorkshire, especially being in Division One now with some Kookaburra rounds left,” added Chohan.

“That's a big aim for me that I've not ticked off yet, to play some first-class cricket.

“It's not an easy thing to do, to bowl leg-spin in England, but I think with the added Kookaburra rounds it does give a bit more of an opportunity for spinners now.

“We'll just have to see if an opportunity comes my way, and all I can do is keep working hard.”

Chohan faces competition at Yorkshire from fellow spinners Dom Bess and Dan Moriarty, although all three have been used at times in T20.

It might reasonably be argued, given that the club is second-bottom of the Championship First Division and in what might be described as a mid-season relegation fight, that this would be the perfect chance to throw Chohan into the first-class arena, with Bess offering a complementary all-round skillset in any case.

Rashid, of course, had to start somewhere - gloriously and memorably, in fact, at Scarborough in 2006, when a six-fer on debut won a match against Warwickshire.

He was just 18 then and went on to become the finest English spinner of his generation, one who was actually criminally under-rated and under-used on the Test match scene in the opinion of this pen, making just 19 Test appearances before a shoulder injury caused him to focus his gifts on the white-ball game.

“It's just making sure that my game is in the best place possible so that if I do get picked, I can have an impact,” said Chohan of his Championship ambitions.

“I've been playing some second-team red-ball cricket, so I’ve just got to keep bowling more and more overs and hopefully I will get an opportunity.

“I've not had a great deal of experience with red-ball, even in twos cricket, so for me it’s just about bowling those overs, bowling to good batters, and just trying to learn different tactics as well.

“It's just more about that repeatability, bowling that same ball again and again and building pressure like that while still looking to be aggressive and take wickets, whereas in T20s I try and be as unpredictable as possible, making sure that no two deliveries on the bounce are the same.”

Getting overs in the tank is always a problem.

Only once has Chohan bowled more than 20 in an innings this summer for the second team, while the Vitality Blast restricts players to a maximum of four overs, barely enough time for a spinner to get his fingers loose before his work is done.

Chohan takes a philosophical approach to the challenges faced by the modern spinner.

“It's tough, because the conditions aren't really on your side either, so it's always going to be a bit harder to get a lot of overs in,” he said.

“It's got to be second-team cricket initially, bowling a lot of balls and just learning your craft, or even going and playing some club cricket.

“We’re blessed at Yorkshire, though, to get to bowl at people (in the nets) like Jonny, Mala, Rooty (Joe Root), Brooky (Harry Brook) – it’s not going to get much better than that in the world, to be honest.

“So, for your development, that’s great, but for me it’s just bowling as many balls as I can, and I try and bowl pretty much every day, so I’m always bowling, always trying to improve.”