Lancs release Baby Boycott

HASEEB Hameed will leave Lancashire at the end of the season after the club decided against offering the 22-year-old batsman a new contract.

The news marks a stunning downturn of fortunes for Hameed, who was once dubbed ‘Baby Boycott’, after the Yorkshire and England opener Geoff Boycott, and exploded on to the international scene as a teenager with a couple of mature innings in India in 2016.

Such was his standing after the tour - where he averaged 43.8 in three Tests - that many concluded England’s search for Alastair Cook’s long-term opening partner was over.

But Hameed’s batting deteriorated to the point where he averaged 9.7 in 17 innings in the 2018 County Championship, and though there has been some improvement this season, the Red Rose declined to offer him a new deal.

A statement from the club said: “Lancashire Cricket Club can confirm that the 2019 season will be Haseeb Hameed’s final year, after the club decided not to renew the batsman’s contract, which concludes at the end of the current campaign.”

Hameed became the youngest batsman to register 1,000 runs for Lancashire three years ago and he made 82 on his England Test debut in Rajkot before contributing a gutsy 59 with a broken finger in Mohali.

A couple of hand injuries were followed by an inexplicable deterioration in his batting and last winter Lancashire’s director of cricket Paul Allott said Hameed was “hanging on by his fingertips” at the club.

He brought up a first century since August 2016 with a knock of 117 against Middlesex in April but he is averaging only 28.42 this year and has been absent from the first-team recently.