Yorkshire v Durham: Root on a high but Sayers’s suffering returns

Last week, Joe Sayers returned to the Yorkshire team for the first time since last May following a brave battle with Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome.

It was an achievement for Sayers simply to get better again, let alone strap on the pads and get back on the field.

But after scores of 15 and 2 in the opening game of the season against Worcestershire, he has been dropped.

Sayers’s place for today’s match against Durham at Headingley Carnegie will be taken by 20-year-old Joe Root, who will open the innings with Adam Lyth.

Technically, it is Anthony McGrath – who missed out at Worcester with a leg injury – who comes in for Sayers.

Sayers and Root both played at New Road, the latter batting No 3 and scoring 0 and 21 not out.

In reality, though, it is Root – normally an opener – who replaces the experienced Sayers, with McGrath long pencilled in at No 3.

It is a ruthless selection – even football managers usually get longer than one game – and one that will have both supporters and critics.

Whereas Root’s confidence will now be sky-high, Sayers’s will be seabed-low. As always, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Whether Yorkshire will be similarly bold and give David Wainwright an outing remains to be seen.

The left-arm spinner – retained in a 13-man squad in the ongoing absence of England’s Tim Bresnan and Ajmal Shahzad – would perhaps have added to the side at Worcester, where fellow spinner Adil Rashid ran amok with 11 wickets.

But Wainwright is not simply an asset in conditions which may or may not favour his bowling style.

He is capable of winning, or saving, a game with bat or ball; he has a first-class batting average of 35.57.

Although Sayers is unfortunate, Root undoubtedly has something about him.

The youngster had a prosperous pre-season and his unbeaten 21 at New Road – though statistically innocuous – represented a battling comeback after his first-innings duck and helped Yorkshire complete a nine-wicket victory.

Regardless of who plays today, Yorkshire will have to improve on a fairly mediocre showing in the West Midlands. Yorkshire effectively defeated a poor side because Gerard Brophy played an exceptional innings of 177 not out – exceptional even accounting for the shortcomings of the opposition – and because Rashid bowled well to run through a generally biddable batting line-up.

Brophy’s innings was the outstanding performance, the South African sharing a match-turning eighth-wicket stand of 149 with Ryan Sidebottom, who made a career-best 61, after Yorkshire slumped to 155-7 in reply to Worcestershire’s first innings 286.

Yorkshire should really have been beaten from that position, but Brophy batted superbly, Sidebottom with unexpected panache, and Worcestershire – gift-wrapped a golden chance to win – were not good enough to take it.

Today’s visit of Durham should provide a sterner test of Yorkshire’s credentials, although the hosts’ hopes of winning their opening two County Championship games for the second year running will be considerably assisted by the absence of Steve Harmison.

The former England pace bowler is out with a cracked wrist after being struck at the non-striker’s end by a drive from team-mate Phil Mustard during last week’s game against Hampshire.

For a Yorkshire top-order adjusting to life without star player Jacques Rudolph, it is a welcome slice of good fortune and one on which they will expect to capitalise.

That top-order looked vulnerable at New Road, although Lyth showed flashes of flair in attractive cameos of 35 and 29 not out and it was, of course, only the first game of the season.

Perhaps that also explained why Yorkshire’s pace department began sluggishly before steadily growing in stature.

Steve Patterson was the pick of the seamers and claimed four wickets, while Moin Ashraf and Sidebottom gave useful support.

The pitch at Worcester offered a good contest between bat and ball, and Yorkshire members will hope the ones at Headingley this season do likewise.

In recent times, the pitches at Leeds have been flatter than a Fenland landscape and done little to encourage positive cricket or supporters through the turnstiles, despite the best efforts of ground staff who have tried their utmost to inject them with life.