Adil Rashid could be forgiven for tiring of the international cricket treadmill more than 16 years after his debut. Now in New Zealand for his 35th international T20 series or tournament, he summarises that hectic, monotonous life when talking about the team-bonding mini\u2011break in Queenstown with which England started their winter: \u201cSometimes you don\u2019t get that opportunity when you\u2019re always on tour,\u201d he says. \u201cYou land, you train, you play and you travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet his enthusiasm is clear, not just when he discusses the immediate future of a side that seems to be flourishing under Harry Brook and his own place in it, but also when watching Rashid train, play or bowl. But while he was able to stop New Zealand in their tracks as they attempted to chase down England\u2019s record\u2011breaking 236<\/a> at Hagley Oval in Christchurch on Monday night, when his four\u2011wicket haul included all but one of their five highest scorers, there is nothing he can do to halt time.<\/p>\n Rashid will turn 38 in February, midway through the T20 World Cup. By the time the next one\u2011day international version is played towards the end of 2027 he will be nearly 40. His great friend and now podcast co\u2011host Moeen Ali, just a few months his senior, retired from international cricket last year. But Rashid remains integral: those four wickets took him to 19 so far this year, six more than any other Englishman. Only three English bowlers have taken so many T20 international wickets in a calendar year: Graeme Swann in 2010, Sam Curran in 2022, and Rashid in 2021, 2022, 2024 and now 2025. But there are still no thoughts of the end; his focus remains on bringing down opponents, not curtains.<\/p>\n \u201cOne hundred per cent I\u2019ve still got the hunger, the hunger to play for England and represent my country,\u201d Rashid says. \u201cAs an individual, I think that\u2019s the biggest achievement in any sport. I still have that passion there for England. I think that when the passion does die down, or whatever it is, that\u2019s when you think: \u2018OK, right, let\u2019s have a real think about it.\u2019 At the moment I haven\u2019t really thought of anything else. I\u2019ve got that passion, there\u2019s a lot of cricket to be played.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be part of this team, this squad we\u2019ve got now, on the next journey we have, which hopefully will be nice and I want to be part of it. Hopefully we can experience some wins and win World Cups, all the good stuff. And I\u2019m looking forward to hopefully participating in that journey.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. Around the corner things can change very quickly. It\u2019s very unpredictable, life and cricket. I always like to stay present \u2013 a game at a time, a step at a time \u2013 and let things unfold, see where cricket and life takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n Rashid (left) with his great friend and former teammate Moeen Ali after winning the T20 World Cup in Melbourne in 2022. Photograph: Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In many ways this is no time to be thinking of endings, but rather of beginnings: a fresh team with a new captain, a new coach and new horizons. \u201cWe\u2019re on that journey,\u201d Rashid says. \u201cThere are a few new faces. Some have gone out, some have come in, and that\u2019s just part of the cycle. But we\u2019ve got experience, we\u2019ve got youth, we\u2019ve got world\u2011class players, we\u2019ve got Brendon McCullum, who\u2019s a very, very good coach, and everybody\u2019s buying in to what we\u2019re trying to achieve. Yes, there\u2019s going to be hiccups along the way, that\u2019s part and parcel of the game, but we\u2019re definitely focused and really on the ball, for whatever lies ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n The desire to schedule that Queenstown trip, and the recruitment of the former All Blacks mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka, suggests there is a particular focus on creating something more from this group of players than just an XI, and Rashid believes this is a particular strength of McCullum\u2019s.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel like a unit,\u201d he says. \u201cWe feel like a family kind of environment, backing each other regardless of whether you perform or don\u2019t perform, you have a good day or a bad day. We\u2019re trying to make sure we stick to our morals in that way. Let\u2019s make sure we stick together, that unity we have, that brotherhood.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a nice thing to have, everybody\u2019s got each other\u2019s backs and that\u2019s the environment that Baz and we are trying to create, and we have created. And hopefully we can, regardless of whether we have a good day or a bad day.<\/p>\n \u201cBaz is very relaxed, chilled out, but he\u2019s on the ball in terms of coaching, he\u2019s on it in that sense. And he wants to create that environment. Yes, we are relaxed, we are chilled, but we\u2019re making sure that when we go on that pitch we\u2019re focused and we\u2019re going for it. A lot of credit goes to Baz for creating that environment, and hopefully we can carry that on for a lot longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adil Rashid could be forgiven for tiring of the international cricket treadmill more than 16 years after his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-217817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}