The trade-off hiding in Adil Rashid's ODI bowling rating

Sky Sports weighs up where Adil Rashid now stands in England's ODI side, calling the leg-spinner one of the few constants through a decade of change in their white-ball cricket. Our ratings point to a sharper question: what job he is now best suited to.

In our men's ODI bowling ratings, Rashid sits 37th of 92 bowlers. That makes him worth 0.12 runs a match more than an average bowler, which places a veteran of 163 ODIs squarely in the middle of the pack.

Cheap wickets, expensive overs

Paradoxically, Rashid is taking wickets more cheaply than the field. Across men's ODIs in the last two years, his bowling average is 27.85, against 31.27 for all bowlers in that time, and he has 39 wickets from 23 matches.

The cost shows in his scoring rate. His economy over the same two years is 5.81, against an average of 5.29, and it has crept above his career economy of 5.64. So the wickets come at a price, and the two effects all but cancel out, which is why his rating lands so close to average.

How Rashid has bowled in his last ten ODIs

The recent run shows that trade-off at work. Against Sri Lanka in January he bowled his full ten overs in each match, with 3/44 his best return. Against India in July he did not complete ten overs in any of the three games and took one wicket in the series, and his latest outing, against Pakistan in October, cost 1/55 from eight overs.

Nor does his batting give him a cushion. He has 68 runs at an average of 6.18 in the last two years, so his place rests on his bowling alone.

What role should Rashid fill for England?

Rashid still earns his place as a wicket-taker. Over the last two years his wickets have come more cheaply than the average bowler's, and that is the strongest case England have for picking him.

So England should bring him on in the middle overs when a partnership needs breaking, and set fields that accept the runs as the price of the wicket. His economy says the tight, holding spell is no longer his strength, which means keeping the run rate down is a job for someone else in the attack. Used as the attacking spinner, Rashid is still worth his place; asked to do both jobs, he is an average ODI bowler.