Darren Gough delighted as Yorkshire CCC step up training preparations

The club’s director of cricket is preparing to send a number of his players overseas for training as Yorkshire attempt to hit the ground running in 2023.

Three bowlers (Ben Cliff, Ben Mike and Matty Revis) are flying to Dubai today to join up with Gulf Giants at the new UAE International T20 League, where Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach, is helping out Giants’ head coach Andy Flower.

Another bowler, Ben Coad, is set to join the group next week after a slight delay caused by a chest infection, with the quartet to train alongside a Giants’ squad that includes the new Yorkshire T20 signing David Wiese.

On January 20, six batsmen (Fin Bean, Harry Duke, George Hill, Will Luxton, Yash Vagadia and James Wharton) are taking part in a training camp in India, accompanied by members of the Yorkshire coaching/backroom staff.

And in a strengthening of the relationship between Yorkshire CCC and Lahore Qalandars, bowlers Dom Leech and Jack Shutt, along with batsman/wicketkeeper Jonny Tattersall, are shortly to train with the Pakistan Super League franchise.

Throw in a number of players involved in international, franchise, grade and domestic cricket around the world this winter, and the Yorkshire players are/have been busier than ever.

It is all part of Gough’s strategy to ensure that they are in tip-top condition and given the best opportunity to succeed going into the campaign, with the club hoping for a much happier 2023 on-and-off the field.

“Last year was something of a rescue act after everything that had gone on, and this is the first year when we hope to influence things in the way that we’d really like,” said Gough, referring to the well-documented challenges that he and the club have lately encountered.

“We’ve got an excellent group of bowlers now with plenty of options and competition for places, and although we’d like more strength in the batting department, and are always on the lookout to strengthen if we can, it isn’t easy to do that at this late stage and I see it as a great opportunity for a couple of our younger batsmen to step up this year.

“As you’ve seen, we’re not shy of giving opportunities to young players and we want to do that as often as we can.

“In an ideal world, we’d have another batsman, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s a great chance for a couple of our young batsmen to really stand up and stake a claim.

“Overall, it’s all going pretty well at the moment, fingers crossed, as we look ahead to next season.

“We’ve also got Matty Fisher going away shortly with the England Lions, and he’s been in great spirits and training hard lately.

“If we can get Fisher and Coad firing on all cylinders, and with the other lads we’ve got with the ball as well, it goes without saying that we’ve got lots of firepower to call on next summer.

“We’re not getting carried away, that’s for sure, but we’re working as hard as we can and the lads are getting ready as best they can.

“After January, the plan is that, from early February, we’ll have pretty much everyone back with us and then we can build on what’s been done during the winter so far ahead of our pre-season tour to South Africa in March, and then it’s on into the county season.”

There is a sense now of a Yorkshire club wanting to move forward in more ways than one following the most turbulent period in any club’s history, one which has left most people drained, depressed and desperate for the associated controversies to be over.

On paper, Yorkshire are a strong unit with the ball if they can keep the likes of Coad and Fisher fit, with the club having not seen nearly enough of those two splendid spearheads in recent times, mainly due to wretched luck with injuries.

The batting department is clearly a little light on paper, with Yorkshire having lost another player lately in Gary Ballance due to the prevailing crisis and only sporadically guaranteed the services of such as Dawid Malan, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow.

Throw in the fact that Harry Brook’s star has risen sharply and Yorkshire are unlikely to see much of him either, and Gough could be forgiven for reflecting on a top-six that might - in whatever sequence - have not long ago consisted in an ideal world of Adam Lyth plus Ballance, Malan, Root, Bairstow and Brook.

Another casualty of the crisis, of course, was another fine batsman in Tom Kohler-Cadmore,

Gough can only work with the talent that remains, with several players indeed having an excellent opportunity to make their case.

It was not that long ago that Brook began somewhere and look where he is now, and Yorkshire do have an uncanny habit of unearthing diamonds.