Fitness levels prove crucial to Yorkshire’s ability to challenge

All credit to the Yorkshire duo as they braved the unseasonably warm temperatures and Friday night traffic rather than take the soft – or should that be sensible? – option of travelling back on the team coach.

According to Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire’s director of professional cricket, Summers and McAllister played an important role in Yorkshire’s metamorphosis last season from perennial strugglers to Championship contenders.

The former Yorkshire and England opening batsman believes their skills were key to maintaining the side’s impressive fitness levels, which helped ensure they suffered few injuries en route to a third-placed finish.

“I was particularly pleased with how well we coped with a hectic playing schedule and maintained standards right up to the last day of the season,” said Moxon.

“A lot of the credit must go to Scot and Tom for their dedication and attention to detail in making sure the players were in the best possible condition.

“This is something we have been working on for a few years now. As trophies are won and lost in August or September, it is vital that players maintain their fitness and energy for the final push.”

There is no greater indication of the way cricket has changed than the increasing importance on backroom staff. The sport is more professional than ever, with training and diets meticulously monitored. For some, it is a welcome change which has helped raise standards.

For others, who subscribe to the Darren Lehmann view of fitness, it has taken away some of the camaraderie of the old days, when cricket’s social life was as much a part of the game as the current trend of warm-ups and warm-downs.

In the past, players learned as much about the game chatting to fellow and former cricketers in the bar after play as they did on the training ground, while pre-match warm-ups were leisurely by today’s standards; indeed, former Lancashire and England pace bowler Brian Statham famously warmed up with “a fag, a cough and a cup of coffee”.

Such preparation would be anathema to Summers and McAllister, whom Moxon credits with having helped transform Yorkshire into a lean, mean, fighting machine.

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