Gale feels so proud to lead at Lord’s

Yorkshire play a County Championship match at Lord’s today for the first time since 1998 with both themselves and opponents Middlesex battling hard for the Championship crown.

The visitors go into the game third in the table, level on points with second-placed Middlesex and five points behind leaders Sussex.

The match marks the midway point of Yorkshire’s Championship campaign and its significance does not need spelling out.

They will be without batsman Gary Ballance, however, who has a virus, with Joe Sayers set to return to the side.

“We’re going well and Middlesex are going well, and the stage is set for Yorkshire to achieve something special down there,” said Gale, whose team have won three and drawn three of their opening seven games.

“It’s the kind of fixture we won promotion for, and, with the form we’re in at the moment, what better time to be playing those lads.

“They’re a good side, they’re playing some really good cricket and Chris Rogers (the Middlesex captain) seems to be in really good form ahead of the Ashes.

“But, on our day, we can beat anyone and it’s definitely a match we’re capable of winning.”

Gale said it would be one of the proudest moments of his career when he leads Yorkshire out for the first time in a Championship game at headquarters.

He has played there twice before in one-day cricket, but never before in a first-class match.

“Leading Yorkshire at Lord’s, in our 150th year, it doesn’t get much better than that,” he reflected.

“It’s the sort of thing you dream of as a kid, and I know all the boys are really looking forward to the experience of it all.

“It’s been a long while since Yorkshire played a Championship game there, and it will be a proud moment for me when I walk out for the toss with the blazer I’ve been wearing to mark the club’s 150th anniversary.

“At first, I wasn’t really sure about wearing that blazer; I thought I might get some stick about it but everyone’s said how smart I look and I think it’s something we should look to continue in the coming years.”

Gale goes into the game on the back of a career-best 272 against Nottinghamshire at Scarborough.

It was the first time the 29-year-old left-hander had reached three-figures in a Championship game since June 2011, and he scored 62 more runs in that one innings than he had managed in his previous nine Championship innings since the start of the season.

Gale, whose double century was the second-highest score in first-class cricket at Scarborough, behind Ken Rutherford’s 317 for the New Zealanders against DB Close’s XI in 1986, admitted the innings removed a monkey off his back.

Now he is determined to build on that display.

“After the early season that I had I’m very, very hungry for runs now and I just want to build on that knock,” he said.

“I felt scratchy at the start of the season, I’ve said that all along, and I’ve been working hard on ironing out one or two technical things.

“I’m a bit more upright in my stance now whereas at the start of the season I was falling over a little bit at the crease.

“I felt that if they bowled straight at me and the ball nipped back that I would get out lbw, so I’ve worked hard on being a bit more upright.”

Ballance’s absence is a blow to Yorkshire, with the left-hander having also made his highest score for the club at Scarborough last week – an innings of 141 compiled during a fifth-wicket stand of 297 with Gale.

But Sayers has been in good form for the second XI and he top-scored with 58 in Sunday’s YB40 fixture against Leicestershire.

Moin Ashraf, the 21-year-old pace bowler, is another ruled out of this week’s match due to a back complaint that also kept him out of the Leicestershire game.

Ashraf is set to have a scan on the injury and he is likely to be replaced in the starting XI by Liam Plunkett, who returned for the Leicestershire match following a thigh injury and promptly produced a man-of-the-match performance with an innings of 53 from 24 balls and figures of 2-47 from eight overs.

Yorkshire’s squad for Lord’s is completed by pace bowlers Iain Wardlaw and Ben Coad. Wardlaw is back in the frame after playing for Scotland against Australia A last week when he captured three wickets and contributed a career-best 33 not out.

Coad, the 19-year-old who has played two YB40 games, would make his first-class debut if he gets the nod.

However, the teenager is likely to miss out with Rich Pyrah having recovered from a hip niggle that kept him out of the Leicestershire contest.