Bresnan is keeping it simple to earn accolades from captain Gale

Bresnan made his first County Championship appearance of the season last week against Lancashire at Headingley.

The 31-year-old missed the first six weeks of the season with a calf injury sustained during the Champion County match against MCC in Abu Dhabi in March.

Yorkshire have missed his contributions with both bat and ball, and Bresnan made an immediate impact on his four-day return.

In the Yorkshire first innings against Lancashire, he scored 69 to help them recover from 74-5, sharing in a sixth-wicket stand of 136 with Adil Rashid that helped the hosts to a final total of 308.

Bresnan followed up with 2-50 from 14 overs as Lancashire responded with 196 and then hit 29 in Yorkshire’s second innings score of 236.

Bresnan was Yorkshire’s best bowler in the Lancashire second innings, returning 4-36 from 22 overs as the visitors were dismissed for 173 to lose by 175 runs.

Gale has paid tribute to a man who had a particularly good season last year, scoring 849 Championship runs at 49.94 and taking 45 wickets at 30.88.

“Brez has been a massive miss for us recently,” said Gale.

“He gives a lot more balance in our bowling attack and helps to provide that extra control.

“If we’re being honest, with Brooksy (Jack Brooks) and Puds (Liam Plunkett), we’d probably been asking them to do a job they’re not used to doing in terms of trying to provide control.

“Their usual job is to run in and take wickets and be aggressive, so having Brez back allows them to do just that and gives us more balance.

“At the end of the day, he’s our Mr Reliable.

“You know exactly what you’re going to get from him.

“I never really bowled Brez and Patto (Steve Patterson) together against Lancashire because they’re the ones who give us control and the other two guys are the ones I attack with.

“Brez can play both roles, though, and he’s vital with the bat and catches them at slip as well.”

Bresnan’s contributions with the ball have been taken as read in recent years.

His batting has been eminently respectable, too, but, since last year, he has seemingly lifted it to another level.

Among Bresnan’s many splendid contributions with the bat last season was a career-best, unbeaten 169 against Durham at Chester-le-Street in which he shared in a county cricket record seventh-wicket partnership of 366 with England’s Jonny Bairstow.

Bresnan also scored 100 not out in the game against Somerset at Taunton, where one of his sixes skulled a spectator who returned to the ground after receiving hospital treatment to get the match-ball signed by the big-hitting Yorkshireman.

“Brez is a genuine all-rounder, a guy who can get you 800 runs and 40 or 50 wickets a year,” added Gale.

“He’s in a similar mould to what Mark Ealham used to be for Notts in his later years.

“Batting-wise, Brez has got a really simple technique.

“It didn’t look like he’d ever been away against Lancashire and he hadn’t batted that much coming into the game.

“He’d got a 60 in the second team, but he’s never been a big one for netting or anything like that.

“He keeps the game very simple in that he basically sees the ball and hits it.

“He’s also got a technique to match that philosophy.

“In fact, he keeps things so simple that he sometimes can’t understand why the rest of us over-think things.”

Gale’s respect for the player is clear, and the captain continues to be delighted with the contributions that lower-order batsmen such as Bresnan provide.

Since 2014, Yorkshire have routinely got themselves out of trouble with excellent work from the middle/lower order.

“The lower-order has been outstanding for us in the last couple of years,” said Gale.

“One or two guys always seem to stand up in the key periods, and it was the same again against Lancashire last week.

“Brez, along with the likes of Adil Rashid and Puds, did a really good job for us, and that’s one of the most pleasing things from our point of view.

“At the same time, there’s still areas that we can improve, and we clearly want more from the top-five batsmen.”

Gale, who admits that he needs to stand up in that regard along with his colleagues, is confident that the top-order will soon deliver.

“We’ve spoken about it a lot in the dressing room, and we know that we haven’t been firing quite as we’d like,” he said.

“But it’s not due to a lack of work ethic or anything like that.

“With the players that we’ve got, I know that we will get it right.

“It’s just about trying to find more consistency.”