Yorkshire Academy's Bradford-born slow bowler Adil Rashid has been singled out as the best leg-spin prospect in the country.

And the modest Rashid, who lives in Heaton and last week celebrated his 18th birthday, told the Telegraph & Argus

that one day he hopes to be as good a bowler as Shane Warne - although he admits that he still has a long way to go to be in the same league as Australia's ace spinner.

The claim that Rashid is England's most promising teenage spinner was made by the England and Wales Cricket Board's spin bowling coach David Parsons, who is acting as assistant coach to National Academy director Peter Moores on England A's current tour of the West Indies.

Parsons said that the young leg-spinner to watch out for was Rashid but apart from him, he was looking at a blank piece of paper and the future did not appear too promising. "We have to increase interest in spin bowling among our counties and clubs and provide support, particularly from the ages of 16-21," he said.

"We now have every spin bowler at

county level from 11 onwards on a data base and while the numbers and quality are good up to the age of 16, there then appears to be a high drop off and we need to investigate that."

Parsons was Rashid's England under-15s coach and twice he has flown out to Australia for coaching from former Australian leg-spinner Terry Jenner, who taught Shane Warne how to bowl.

Rashid, who is studying for his A levels at Belle Vue Boys School, started out with Bradford & Bingley, where he played for the second XI before joining the Yorkshire Academy.

He also opened the batting for the Academy in the Yorkshire League last summer and had an excellent all-round season, scoring 526 runs in cup and league matches with a top score of 95 and capturing 24 wickets at 26.63 runs apiece.

Rashid has represented England at under-14s, 15s and 17s level and last year played occasionally for the under-19s against touring sides.

"I am delighted that David Parsons has singled me out for praise but I think that there are probably around five to ten good young spinners playing second XI county cricket at the moment," said Rashid.

"Hopefully I will one day be able to emulate Shane Warne but my more immediate ambitions are to be good enough to play for Yorkshire and then England.

"I was chosen a couple of times for Yorkshire Seconds last season and I want to try to hold down a regular place with them this summer."

Yorkshire's other talented leg-spinner

is 20-year-old Mark Lawson, who in 2004 became the first student of the ECB's wrist spin development programme to play first-class cricket.

Lawson claimed five wickets against Derbyshire in the penultimate championship match of last season when Yorkshire were promoted but he was

heavily punished in the final game against Northamptonshire at Northampton when the two home spinners, England new boy Monty Panesar and Jason Brown, grabbed all 20 Yorkshire wickets.