'Fine wine' Adam Lyth in the midst of a season to remember

On the contrary, Lyth is Yorkshire’s leading run-scorer in the County Championship (603 at an average of 54.81) and was the second-highest - by one run, and from one fewer innings - in the T20 Blast heading into Friday’s match at Birmingham Bears (153 at 76.00).

He is also second in the club’s Championship bowling averages with eight wickets at 16, his part-time off-breaks a handy string to his bow to go with his excellent fielding and catching.

Lyth baulks at the question “are you getting better?”, replying simply and sensibly: “I don’t know, I’ll let other people decide that.”

But (warning: fine wine cliche incoming...), he is arguably getting better with age, just like a fine wine, with no thoughts of retirement on the Whitby man’s horizon.

“I want to play for as long as possible,” he said. “As long as I’m enjoying it and the club wants me, I want to play for as long as I can.

“I’ve had a good season up to now, and it’s going well at the minute, but I know there’s a lot more cricket to be played.

“I’ve scored runs, match-winning contributions, and hopefully there’s plenty more to come.”

Lyth’s latest match-winning contribution - or at least key contribution to a Yorkshire win - came on Sunday against Derbyshire at Headingley.

He top-scored with 84 as the hosts cruised to victory by nine wickets with 11 balls left, sharing 137 for the first wicket with Dawid Malan, who struck 79 not out, after Yorkshire had hit back strongly with the ball, restricting Derbyshire to 179-6 after they had been 114-0 at the halfway stage.

Lyth was delighted with his 31st half-century in T20 cricket but annoyed not to have converted it into a second hundred.

It is something of an anomaly, in fact, that he has made only one hundred in the 20-over format - and not just any old hundred but what remains an English T20 record of 161 against Northamptonshire at Headingley in 2017.

“I was very disappointed coming off (against Derbyshire),” he said. “You don’t often get chances to get hundreds in T20, to get not out hundreds, and to get your side home at the same time.

“Opening the batting, it’s the best chance to get hundreds, of course, and I’ve got plenty of fifties; I just haven’t got that second hundred yet.

“I thought I was on for it, but it wasn’t to be. I’d take a win over getting a hundred any day of the week, and I’d have taken 84 at the start of the game.”

Lyth did reach a couple of milestones during his innings.

He became the first man to reach 4,000 T20 runs for Yorkshire and also passed 4,500 career runs in the format.

The 4,000 milestone was special – not least because it emphasised how far Lyth is ahead of the field.

The next-highest run-scorer for Yorkshire in T20 is Andrew Gale with 2,260, followed by Tom Kohler-Cadmore (1,790), David Willey (1,586) and Gary Ballance (1,549).

“I’m really pleased to have reached the 4,000,” he added. “I’ve got 4,500 in my career overall in this format, so 5,000 is the next target, I guess.

“After that, it’s all about getting as many as I can. I enjoy playing this format of the game, and it’s nice to have had some success.”

Lyth was pleased that his latest milestones came at Headingley.

Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach, joked that Lyth had probably deliberately missed the previous match at Northampton just so he could breast the tape at his beloved home ground.

In reality, an arm injury had kept Lyth out of action at Wantage Road.

However, helped by a rare break in the schedule - Yorkshire were without a first-team game for seven days - he showed no ill-effects in the Derbyshire match.

“I did it (the injury) during the warm-up at Leicester (two days before the Northants game),” he said.

“I sort of tweaked my forearm and then made it worse in the field so I had to go off.

“I probably could have risked playing at Northants, but Shan (Masood, captain), Gibbo (Gibson) and the physio felt that there was no point risking it and that it was better to concentrate on trying to get fit for the Derbyshire game.

“Luckily, we had a week without any games, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to get myself ready; it was just about giving it a couple of days’ rest and doing all the right things - icing it, eating well, stuff like that.”

Yorkshire’s third win from four left them second in the North Group going into Friday’s fixture, two points behind leaders Lancashire with a game in hand.

“It’s a great start,” said Lyth. “Momentum is key in this competition.

"Hopefully we can keep playing the brand of cricket that we have been doing.

“It’s serving us really well at the minute, and hopefully we can keep putting on a good show for the crowds.”