• Last updated on Fri, 15 Jun, 2018, 10:55 PM
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Plunkett is in the final year of his Yorkshire contract. © Getty
England fast bowler Liam Plunkett says he is considering a move away from Yorkshire when his current deal expires after being disappointed with the county’s decision to drop him during the Royal London One-Day Cup.
Plunkett, who is in the final year of his contract, spent the opening part of the county season at the IPL with Delhi Daredevils but returned for Yorkshire during the domestic one-day competition. He played three matches but was dropped after taking 1 for 76 against Lancashire at Old Trafford with his county maintaining that he was ‘undercooked’.
“Yes, I was disappointed,” Plunkett said. “I’d played the previous games and felt I went all right. We won the previous game, so I felt in a good place – but I had one bad performance. They said I wasn’t ready, that I looked undercooked.
“I just felt I was getting back into it. That was the decision they took. I feel I was coming into a good place and I feel I can help win games for Yorkshire so obviously I was disappointed and I let them know on that.”
Plunkett can now talk to other counties and says he will be looking at his options as Yorkshire have not, yet, offered him a new deal. “It’s my last year and I went in for a chat with Martyn Moxon, and obviously as you get a little bit older you maybe think about your base salary coming down and you’re playing for incentives and stuff but I didn’t really get offered anything,” he said.
“They just said we’ll look into it in the next month or so but it gives me a right to speak to other counties and it gives me that option and I’m looking to do that.”
Plunkett’s admission comes just a day after fellow England fast-bowler David Willey said Yorkshire had threatened to rip up his contract when he spoke to them in April about signing a deal with Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. That situation has, however, now been resolved with Willey signing a one-year contract extension at the club.
But there remain tensions between some of the players and the management, particularly those who are looking to play in white ball tournaments around the globe. Yorkshire Director of Cricket Martyn Moxon has been vocal about the difficulties those absences cause county clubs – he called the late departures of Willey and Plunkett to the IPL an “impossible position” – and he is heading a group of county representatives who are looking at what can be done to limit the damage.
Despite his frustrations with Yorkshire, Plunkett has been in fine form for England’s ODI team and has been since he returned to the squad in 2016. In that time, he has taken 60 wickets at 26.18 and now has the best strike rate of any England bowler in ODI history. He is a vital part of Eoin Morgan’s attack leading into next year’s World Cup although they will have to do without him for some of the winter’s series against Sri Lanka as Plunkett is getting married.
“We planned because originally it was a Test series that was there,” he explained. “I mean we’ve been together eleven years, it’s been long enough so I thought I’d better get married. We did look at schedules and the best time to do it and we got into it and there was flights booked from America and a lot of guests coming over so it was so hard to change it then. I’m really excited to get married but I am going to miss part of that series.”
For now, though, England’s focus is on the second match of the five game series against Australia at Cardiff on Saturday (June 16) and in particular improving on a rusty display with the bat in the first match at the Oval. If they can, a clean sweep against a depleted Australia is on the cards. “You’re always looking for a whitewash,” Plunkett said. “But you can’t rest on your laurels. So we’re looking for complete performances.”
