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Yorkshire critical of Shahzad

Image: Ajmal Shahzad: Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves slams seamer's team ethic

Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves has criticised Ajmal Shahzad's attitude in the wake of the decision to let the England seamer leave.

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Graves hits out at departing seamer

Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves has criticised Ajmal Shahzad's attitude in the wake of the decision to let the England seamer leave. The White Rose country announced earlier this week that the 26-year-old was free to join another county, either permanently or on-loan for the rest of the current campaign. The decision came as a big surprise given Shahzad had taken eight wickets in three first-class matches at an average of 26.25 for the county thus far this season. Yorkshire have a new backroom staff in place following the appointment of Jason Gillespie as first-team coach and Graves has revealed that Shahzad did not share the former Australia international's vision for the team. Graves believes Shahzad's lack of team ethic has contributed to his exit, commenting: "I think the Ajmal Shahzad bit has been rumbling on for a while.

Not prepared

"I am not prepared to have somebody playing for Yorkshire who does not want to be part of the team. All the comments I have heard from Ajmal are about him, not about the team. "(Coach) Jason Gillespie has very strong ideas about what he wants the bowlers to do. If one bowler strays away from that plan, that bowler is not a team player. That is what we can't afford. "He (Shahzad) didn't see that. He wanted to have the opportunity to be his own man, bang it in when he wants to bang it in and bowl bouncers when he wants to bowl bouncers. "Jason's come in with a totally new regime and the player's still not happy so we can't keep changing the backroom and all the rest of it. We are where we are and I supported the management. "We parted amicably on Tuesday. We don't want to see any detrimental situation to him, either financially or playing side, and we hope he gets a new club straight away and he can get playing cricket again which is what we all want to see. "We're sad to see him go but at the end of the day, there's no point in keeping him here if he's unhappy and that's why we decided to do what we did on Tuesday and part ways."

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