Opening batsman Haseeb Hameed will leave Lancashire at the end of the season after the club confirmed they will not be renewing his contract.

He burst onto the scene in 2016, scoring four County Championship centuries and averaging a shade under 50 in his first full season of professional cricket. His exploits earned him a spot on England’s winter tours of Bangladesh and India, and when he got his chance in the first game against the latter, the right-hander immediately impressed, scoring two half-centuries in three matches and averaging 43.80 before a fractured finger ruled him out of the remainder of the series.

Haseeb Hameed will leave Lancashire at the end of the season.

Worth reading @Phil_Wisden‘s piece on the opener from earlier this year?https://t.co/i89sELtwNs

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) August 23, 2019

Many reckoned England had found the partner and eventual successor to Alastair Cook at the top of the order, but Hameed’s form has since nosedived. In the 2017 and 2018 seasons he batted 48 times in first-class cricket, averaging 18.58 and passing 50 on just three occasions.

His lack of form led Lancashire’s director of cricket Paul Allot to say Hameed was “hanging on by his fingertips at Lancashire”, and despite a century in his county’s first Championship game of the season against Middlesex, his struggles returned this year. Since that knock, he has averaged 19.18, and though there were rumours of interest from other counties, Hameed currently finds himself without a domestic contract.