Yorkshire have requested the release of Adil Rashid from the Test tour of West Indies and are awaiting a decision from the England coach Peter Moores.
Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire’s director of cricket, talked with Moores during the first day of the second Test against West Indies to officially ask for the leg-spinner to be made available for the county champions’ home fixture against last year’s runners-up Warwickshire, which starts on Sunday.
With England unlikely to field two spinners at the Kennington Oval in Barbados – the venue of the final Test – and James Tredwell likely to be fit for selection there anyway, Rashid will be surplus to requirements once more. As in Antigua last week, he is one of four unused Yorkshire players on the tour.
In his absence, Yorkshire have not fielded a frontline spinner against Nottinghamshire, making do with Jack Leaning’s part-time off-spin. However, it is for his dependable middle-order contributions that the 21-year-old is primarily in the side and his maiden first-class hundred earned the visitors a narrow first-innings lead.
Leaning, whose father Andy was a much-travelled lower division goalkeeper, proved a safe pair of hands in last season’s County Championship-winning team but would not have expected to have been playing at this time of year but for England’s plundering of Headingley’s resources.
There are echoes of Michael Vaughan about his batting, not least in his temperament, but also in his accomplished pulling. A trio of his early boundaries came via cross-bat shots as Nottinghamshire were punished for testing a theory of weakness. While he was in tandem with Richard Pyrah, with whom he shared a stand of 111, it appeared that Yorkshire would carve out an even greater advantage.
“It was nice to get the monkey off my back after scoring 99 last year at Arundel and all I can do while we have lads away is put as many runs on the board and when they do come back try to hold my place,” Leaning said.
There was no semblance of a chance from the stylish right-hander until Samit Patel lured him from his crease one run in arrears and Chris Read collected at shoulder height to complete the slickest of stumpings. Patel’s slow left-arm proved the most successful component of a Nottinghamshire attack that Harry Gurney limped out of late on with a groin niggle. He will be assessed in the immediate aftermath of this match.
Yorkshire still believe it is there for the winning after they made light of Leaning’s shelling of first-innings double centurion Alex Hales on nought off the teenage seamer Matthew Fisher by claiming the England World Cup player as one of three victims in the evening session.
