For a boy intent on learning his craft in the shadows, Adil Rashid has shown a remarkable gift for attracting the spotlight in the opening weeks of this season. Thirteen wickets in Yorkshire’s first two County Championship games, a couple of half-centuries, and in Shane Warne’s back garden at the Rose Bowl last week a leg-spinning duel between the young prodigy and the old maestro. A sprightly first innings with the bat, including a deft late cut and a fine sweep for boundaries off the Australian, and a prolonged spell from the Pavilion End through the second afternoon that brought figures at least comparable with Warne’s on the opening day quickly dispelled any idea that the 19-year-old might be overawed in such company. Warne: 18-1-63-1; Rashid: 26.3-2-79-2. Just the matter of 708 Test wickets to go, then.

Warne, always a generous teacher, spent an hour talking to Moneeb Iqbal, the Durham leg-spinner, last season. Martyn Moxon, the new Yorkshire coach, was not going to miss the chance of booking a tutorial for Rashid as well. “The beauty of Shane Warne is not only his ability to spin the ball, but to bowl very few bad balls,” says Moxon. “That’s what we’re trying to do with Adil. To create pressure on the batsman, you need to land the leg-spinner consistently. That’s what I have been most pleased about: he has bowled consistent line and length while still spinning the ball.”

So concerned are Yorkshire that the next Monty Panesar/Shane Warne/Mushtaq Ahmed (delete as applicable) should develop quietly and methodically through his first full season of county cricket that they have thrown a protective blanket around him reminiscent of Ryan Giggs in his early days at Old Trafford. Given the history of leg-spinning prodigies in England in recent decades, the policy is understandable, but it is probably unnecessary. Rashid can look after himself in the interview room as readily as he can on the field, and the more exposure he can get to the world he might be asked to inhabit sooner rather than later, the better prepared he will be. As an England player, there is no hiding place. But, as the first Yorkshire-born Asian to make a significant impact on his county’s cricket, there has not been much local cover either.

“The problem is that he’ll be seen as the next saviour of English cricket and then, before you know it, the whole thing has turned sour,” says Moxon. “This time last year Adil was still playing academy cricket, so we need to be sensible in our expectations of him. Potentially he’s going to be a fantastic cricketer, but he’s got to put in consistent performances at this level first before we start talking about international cricket.”

Duncan Fletcher might have taken that as a challenge; Peter Moores, the new England coach, will be more open to guidance on the timing of Rashid’s seemingly inevitable elevation to the national team. Forging his craft on the blades of flashing Sri Lankan and Australian bats has not necessarily been beneficial to Sajid Mahmood’s confidence, and although Rashid is a positive and ebullient cricketer, a leg-spinner needs more delicate nurturing. “You can’t just bowl the next ball at their bloody head,” in the words of Phil Tufnell.

Rashid’s first steps into his profession have been marked not only by the unusual weight of his runs and wickets, but by his uncanny knack of injecting some purpose into a game. Meandering along at 221 for one on the second day of their championship match at The Oval, Surrey were swiftly stirred from their reverie by the arrival of Rashid’s well-flighted leg-breaks. Within the space of 16 runs, four wickets had fallen and the balance of the game had shifted irrevocably. On Thursday afternoon, with Hampshire compiling a solid reply to Yorkshire’s first innings, Rashid was in the thick of the action again, twirling away with a high step and a genuine roll of the wrists. Was it coincidence that Rashid was at the other end while Tim Bresnan demolished Hampshire’s middle order with a high-class stint of swing bowling?

“I can’t remember him [Rashid] bowling one rank bad ball,” says Michael Brown, whose second consecutive championship century kept Hampshire in the game. “Traditionally this pitch hasn’t got a lot of bounce, but he gets more bounce than Warney. Yet his control was so good and he worked the pitch out pretty quickly, bowling a little slower. Usually with a leggie you can wait for the bad ball. Here it was a question of limiting your mode of dismissal and trying to rotate the strike. Warney is always on about that and how irritating it is for a bowler. I tried to work him into the covers or behind square on the leg side, but there were no balls to release the pressure. For a kid of 19 . . . ”

With the pitch sited at the furthest end of the square, the side-on view was the best. Rashid’s run-up is Warne-like in its economy: a few shuffling steps, a couple of long strides and an easy delivery, remodelled during the winter after a stress fracture of the back, that is more Intikhab Alam than Warne.

Brown computed three different deliveries: the stock leg-spinner with variations of pace, the googly and a top-spinner, none read with comfort. Markedly absent was the stroking of the chin, the knowing stare, the extravagant gesture and the anguished cries, all essential props in Warne’s theatre.

“He’ll learn,” says Moxon. “The important thing for Adil is that he lands his leg-spinner, because you always need a stock ball to go back to. He’s got a variation ball, but the risk is to overuse it. If you’re landing the leggie and turning it, then you’re in the game. But Adil thinks about the game and about his bowling, so he’ll get a feel for it.”

A winter of discontent usually prompts a spring search for a new generation of talent. Yorkshire, a county with no history of leg-spinners, now boasts two, Rashid and Mark Lawson, a 21-year-old from Leeds who had Warne stumped in the corresponding match at the end of last season. “Let him play this summer and see how it goes,” says Moxon. Rashid’s ability may not allow for such conservatism.