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Matthew Hoggard one of big name trio sidelined for Yorkshire
MARTYN MOXON has called on Yorkshire's batsmen to stand up and be counted as the club attempt to halt a gloomy sequence of three successive County Championship defeats when they face rock-bottom Surrey at Headingley Carnegie.
Yorkshire go into today's game on the back of consecutive setbacks against Durham, Kent and Nottinghamshire, which have dealt a heavy blow to their title hopes.
That sequence has seen Yorkshire slip to seventh in Division One, one place above the relegation zone, 11 points above Surrey and 28 points adrift of leaders Nottinghamshire.
Although Yorkshire have consistently been competitive in defeat, director of cricket Moxon is concerned the batting unit is failing to complement some largely impressive bowling displays.
His call for greater consistency will not be assisted by the absence of vice-captain Anthony McGrath, however, who has failed to recover from a hamstring injury which forced him out of the Nottinghamshire game.
Pace bowlers Matthew Hoggard (shoulder) and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan (neck) are also missing, although captain Darren Gough returns after sitting out the previous two Championship fixtures with sundry niggles. "We haven't batted well as a team for the last few games and it's something we need to put right against Surrey," said Moxon.
"The stats in the last few matches have been pretty frightening, really. We keep losing wickets for a small number of runs and, although we're doing well at fighting our way back into games, the collapses are costing us dear.
"Against Kent, for example, we were 340-2 and only managed to get 400. Then we were 170-4 in the second innings and were all out for 190.
"When you consider we then had Kent seven-down chasing 140, it's easy to see how costly such collapses can be.
"Then, against Notts, we were 75-1 in our second innings and playing quite nicely, only to slip to 75-4.
"Again, when you consider we ended up with 290 chasing 400, we paid a heavy price for losing wickets in clusters.
"Individually, the lads have all got runs this season and there's no doubt they've got the quality to put some good scores together.
"The pleasing thing from my point of view is that we've been playing some good cricket along the way, but we've got to stop those really bad passages of play that are costing us games."
Moxon said it was important the batsmen played without fear as they take on a Surrey team still chasing their first Championship victory of the season.
"There's a fine line between highlighting something that's wrong and at the same time making sure that players don't have any fear when they go out to play, but we've got to cope with that," added Moxon.
"It's just part of professional sport and something we need to deal with.
"But it certainly isn't all doom and gloom by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, we've lost three games on the bounce, but we're not despondent and we know that if we can get on a roll and get a couple of wins under our belt, the outlook changes because the table is so tight.
"A couple of victories could put us right back up there challenging again and we just need to go out there and believe in ourselves."
Teams
Yorkshire (from): Chris Taylor, Joe Sayers, Adam Lyth, Jacques Rudolph, Andrew Gale, Gerard Brophy (wk), Adil Rashid, Tim Bresnan, Steve Patterson, Darren Gough (c), Deon Kruis, Richard Pyrah and David Wainwright.
Surrey (from): Scott Newman, Stewart Walters, Mark Ramprakash (capt), Jonathan Batty (wk), Usman Afzaal, Matt Spriegel, Matt Nicholson, Chris Jordan, Saqlain Mushtaq, Jade Dernbach, Pedro Collins, Jimmy Ormond, Murtaza Hussain.
Follow the action throughout day one on this website.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
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