England prospect Matt Parkinson believes county cricket has "an attitude problem" towards spin which is stunting the progress of young players like himself.
Parkinson made his first-class debut for Lancashire in 2016 and has gone on to take 102 wickets at an impressive average of 23.35. However, the 25-year-old has only played 32 first-class matches across six County Championship seasons.
Last year, Parkinson featured in 11 of Lancashire's 14 games, taking 36 wickets at 20.55, earning him a spot in England's Test squad for their recent tour of the West Indies. However, he was called up as a reserve spinner and did not play. And speaking at a press day ahead of Lancashire's first County Championship match of the new season, Parkinson has criticised the system for not offering young spinners the chance to play more.
Parkinson stated that 'generic county seamers' play more games than spinners and criticised teams for leaving them out because they either do not prepare pitches conducive to spin or do not trust their batters to "score enough runs to bring the spinner into the game". He also claimed there is "an attitude problem" within county cricket and suggested sides "need to be prepared to lose to play spinners".
He said: "You have 23-year-old seamers who have played 60 or 70 [first-class] games but I'm almost 26 and have played 35 [32]. You've got just a generic county seamer who has played 70 games because he's part of a four-man seam attack.
"Spinners are never going to improve if you're not playing. It's tough because the spinners that are coming through now - and I'm pally with a lot of them - they're all at clubs where you think that spinners should play every single game.
"[Amar] Virdi and [Dan] Moriarty at The Oval, they're good enough to play every game. The Oval could be conducive to spin if they wanted it to be.
"It's the same with Bessy [Dom Bess] at Headingley, my brother [Callum Parkinson] at Leicester, [Josh] Baker, all these young spinners… I don't care how much it's rained, you can produce wickets that are good and can spin.
"We need to play. They've all got good records when they've played, they just need to consistently play.
"Then, in two or three years' time, you'll have a group of spinners who have all played 60 or 70 games and have taken wickets consistently for three or four years and there won't be this discussion of 'where are the spinners coming from' because they're there. It's obvious. Mason Crane [is another].
"[They get left out because] either you don't back your batters to score enough runs to bring the spinner into the game, or the wicket's green. I know I've been more fortunate than a lot of spinners.
"It's a problem but it's more of an attitude problem. I think teams need to be prepared to lose to play spinners, in my opinion."
