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Yorkshire look to Darren Gough's return to spark revival
MARTYN MOXON is backing Darren Gough to inspire a return to winning ways when the captain makes his comeback from injury in tomorrow's County Championship match against Surrey at Headingley Carnegie.
Gough has missed the last two Championship games with various niggles and has only appeared in four of the club's nine fixtures in the competition this summer.
But as Yorkshire attempt to halt a dispiriting slump of three successive defeats that has left them seventh in Division One, one place above the relegation zone, director of cricket Moxon believes the return of the former England fast bowler can help trigger a revival.
"It's a big bonus to have Goughy back," said Moxon. "Results haven't gone well lately and you need your senior players at times like these.
"Someone like Goughy is exactly what we need because he brings so much skill and enthusiasm. Hopefully, he can put in a big performance and give everyone a lift."
Yorkshire will today check on the fitness of vice-captain Anthony McGrath and overseas pace bowler Rana Naved-ul-Hasan before finalising their line-up.
McGrath was forced to pull out of last week's match against Nottinghamshire at the 11th hour with a hamstring injury, while Rana picked up a neck/shoulder injury at Trent Bridge.
"We'll see how Mags pulls up on Tuesday morning and make a decision then," said Moxon. "I spoke to Rana over the weekend and he's a lot better, so hopefully he'll be okay."
Moxon admitted this was a key game as Yorkshire seek to lift themselves back up the Championship table.
"It's an important week for us," he said. "We've had three defeats on the bounce and need to get back to playing the cricket we know we are capable of playing.
"The encouraging thing is that we are not being hammered out of sight – far from it.
"We have been in games at various periods, but have just paid the price for the odd poor session here or there, and that's what we need to cut out.
"Against Notts, for example, we had that poor period when we lost three wickets for no runs and slipped from 75-1 to 75-4 in our second innings.
"But we still got up to 290-odd chasing 400, so that shows what we could have achieved if the earlier batsmen had been able to stick around."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
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Wind direction: North west
