Friends reunited spearhead return to winning ways

Sidebottom and Brooks returned from injury to spearhead Yorkshire’s third County Championship win of the season, and their first for four games.

“It made a massive difference having those two back in the team,” said Gale, whose new-ball partners have played a vital part in successive titles.

“Brooksy has a fantastic record at Headingley, and so does Siddy, and with them back in action, we were able to field the attack that won us the Championship last year.

“Having Ryan back after three months is like a new signing; he’s probably not going to play every game, but if we can pick him on the right decks, and Brooksy as well, then we’ve always got a chance.

“We’ve got a very strong attack, with Patto (Steve Patterson) and Bres (Tim Bresnan) too, and then Rash (Adil Rashid) is ruthless with the tail, which is massive for us.”

Sidebottom – making his first appearance since the corresponding match at Edgbaston in April after an ankle injury – took 3-41 in the first innings and 2-30 in the second in a performance that showed he has lost none of his threat.

Brooks, who had missed two of the three previous Championship games with a quad injury, took 2-28 and 3-48 as he and Sidebottom captured half of the Warwickshire wickets in the match.

With Yorkshire having been hit by injuries throughout the summer, particularly to their bowling line-up, they suddenly have a clean bill of health. They even had the luxury of resting Liam Plunkett and David Willey for the Warwickshire game.

“At the start of the season, I thought my biggest headache would be fitting seven (bowlers) into four (places),” said Gale.

“At times, I’ve been scratching around trying to find four fit bowlers, which has hardly been ideal.

“We had to get Josh Shaw back from his loan spell at Gloucester, and it’s been quite tough.

“But they say that if you can perform well at the business end you get your rewards, and, hopefully, that’s what we can do now with our injured players back.”

As far as the Championship goes, that business end involves six matches in quick succession, with captain Gale identifying the three home fixtures as key to Yorkshire’s chances of success.

Yorkshire play Notts at Scarborough (August 23-26) and complete their home games at Headingley against Durham (September 6-9) and Somerset (September 12-15).

“If we’re going to be up there at the end of the season, we need to win our home games, and that’s exactly what we did this time and it’s put us right back in the mix,” said Gale.

“We’ve got a good record at Scarborough – albeit we lost to Middlesex there last time – and we’ve also got two more games at Headingley, and we need to make them count.”