Title favourites Yorkshire CCC staying positive in search for first win

The first match, at home to Leicestershire, was a rain-affected draw. Not much that Yorkshire could have done about that.

The second, at Gloucestershire, was also drawn - not helped by a slow pitch, the Kookaburra ball and, in this view, an overly-cautious declaration when Gloucestershire were set 498 for victory (to put that into perspective, there have been only two higher chases in the 22,000-plus County Championship matches since the tournament started in 1890).

The third game, at Middlesex, was lost by six wickets, one of those low-scoring affairs that can go either way. Then, last week, another rain-ruined draw at home to Derbyshire, one in which Yorkshire made the running but were unable to press home the advantage created.

For Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach, it has been a frustrating start to a season in which both he and his men have made no secret of their desire to win the Second Division title - not just to get promoted.

They head into Friday’s match against Glamorgan at Headingley fifth in the table, although no one has pulled away given the bad weather, with Yorkshire just 12 points behind leaders Leicestershire, themselves winless.

Yorkshire’s defeat at Middlesex, indeed, was just one of two positive results in Division Two in the first four rounds, the other being Sussex’s four-wicket triumph against Gloucestershire at Hove. The picture is slightly better in Division One, where there have been five positive results, but there are more teams in Division One.

Asked whether he remains confident that Yorkshire can still go up/win the league, Gibson said: “Absolutely. We’re playing well. We’re playing good enough cricket.

"Of course the weather hasn’t helped us. If we’d had four good days against Derbyshire, we could have pushed for the win. The same thing against Leicestershire.

“Bristol… the weather took some time out of the game, and the last day we couldn’t get over the line, but we played well in all of those games.

"We didn’t play well at Lord’s, and we probably got what we deserved, but guys are making runs, we’re bowling well and we’re very confident in what we’re doing.”

Gibson would like more assistance from the Headingley pitches. One option could be to try to make them more spin friendly, enabling the club to play two specialist spinners in Dom Bess and Dan Moriarty, both of whom are in the squad for this match.

“We could look at trying to make the wicket spin, but it’s very difficult to make the wicket spin at Headingley because Headingley is not traditionally a place for spin bowling, but we’ll discuss all the options that are open to us,” said Gibson.

"When we’re playing at home, we need a little bit more assistance from the pitch.

"The groundsman has been fantastic since we’ve come in; he’s on board with everything we’re trying to do, and we have a chat after every game anyway, but we want to have some sort of an advantage if we can.”

As Yorkshire search for the perfect formula, Gibson wants his bowlers to be creative. Wickets can come in a variety of ways - not least in terms of the field settings used.

“One of the things that we challenge the guys to do is to find different ways to get wickets,” added Gibson. “We have to find more creative ways to get wickets on some of the pitches that we find ourselves on.

“Setting men at leg slip and bowling straight, for example, or setting men on the drive and bowling a little bit fuller, seeing if the batsman will take it on. There are various things we can try and do.”

The visit of Glamorgan will be the latest instalment of Root versus Root - Yorkshire’s Joe against Glamorgan’s Billy, the latter the junior by just over 19 months.

It will also be Harry Brook’s last county appearance for the foreseeable future ahead of England’s white and red-ball summer.

So far, Yorkshire have been unable to capitalise on the presence of the England pair, despite Brook having scored two hundreds and a fifty in the first four games and Root one hundred and a fifty in his three appearances.

Root will sit out the next Championship game at Sussex from May 17, but he will be back for the fixture at Northamptonshire the following week before featuring at t he start of the T20 Blast.

“You hope you can capitalise on their presence and get a few wins, but of course that hasn’t happened yet,” said Gibson.

“We’d have liked to have capitalised a little bit more, but others will be ready to step up when they’re not available.”

Yorkshire squad: Lyth, Bean, Masood (captain), Brook, Root, Hill, Tattersall, Revis, Thompson, Fisher, Moriarty, Bess, Coad.