On the face of it, a hardly unusual story cropped up on the pages of Cricinfo this week - English county releases batsman. Lord knows this is a regular occurence and some players, despite their best efforts, fall at the hurdle of cricket at a professional level. However, in many ways, the story of Adrian Shankar is not only uncommon, it is downright strange.
Worcestershire signed Shankar on a two-year deal in early May. His pedigree seemed impressive; Bedford School (previous alumni - Alistair Cook) & Cambridge Blue; Previous 1st and 2nd XI experience at Lancashire and Middlesex. He had also had a productive winter in Sri Lanka, off the back of which Worcestershire saw fit to offer him a contract (a process no doubt hastened by the injury to skipper and opening batsman Daryl Mitchell).
Except, all was not as it seemed. Shankar was bowled for a duck at Lords on debut, then made 10* against Durham a week later before retiring hurt. Suspicion was further aroused by his claims of his Sri Lankan trip, which turned out to be vastly inflated by the man himself - apparently the standard of league he was participating in was much below county standard. Doubts were also raised about his true age; His Lancashire profile suggested he was 26 - Cricinfo 29. As George Dobell of the website said in a follow-up article on Friday, 'it appears Shankar talked his way into a county contract with a mixture of bluff and bravado'.
Some things about Shankar are true - he did indeed score a Varsity hundred in 2002, although according to his Cambridge coach the bowling was 'of very poor standard'. When Shankar signed for Lancashire, comments attributed to his coach about Shankar being 'one of the finest young players he'd ever seen' were completely untrue. No-one at either Worcesteshire or Lancashire appeared to do any due diligence on Shankar before signing him, beyond taking his passport and looking at him in a couple of net sessions, which is staggering.
Shankar spent several seasons in the Surrey Championship playing for my club, Spencer. Although I never met him personally, opinions of him appeared to be mixed, and he tellingly never scored so much as a half-century (to the best of my research) in the premier division of the Surrey Championship while at the club. Isn't this the most obvious indication of all, for most counties, that the player was not up to standard?
Worcestershire have now called in the local Constabulary to investigate. Whether a prosecution will be bought is an open question, but there is no doubting it is an embarrassing episode for Steve Rhodes's side and county cricket in general, at a time when the domestic game has been attracting positive headlines for its renewed confidence in young cricketers.
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