Gale refuses to throw in towel as Durham head for title glory

The Yorkshire captain conceded that Paul Collingwood’s men have one hand on the trophy after further twists and turns in the title race.

Yorkshire’s failure to beat Sussex at Hove, allied to Durham’s nine-wicket victory away to Derbyshire, means Durham have a 27.5-point lead going into the final two rounds of Championship games.

With a maximum of 24 points on offer for a win, it means the north-east county are already more than one victory better off and that Yorkshire have a mountain to climb.

Gale, who pledged Yorkshire will keep fighting to the bitter end, must now lift his side for the match against Middlesex at Headingley, starting tomorrow.

Yorkshire must take at least four points more than Durham manage in their game against Nottinghamshire at Chester-le-Street, which also starts tomorrow, to keep the title race alive going into the season’s last week.

Yorkshire conclude their campaign against bottom club Surrey at The Oval, beginning a week tomorrow, while Durham finish off against Sussex at Hove.

A 21-point win this week for Durham, who have surged ahead by winning their last four matches, would be sufficient regardless of how Yorkshire fare against Middlesex.

“It’s Durham’s title to lose now,” said Gale. “They’ve played some really good cricket in the last month or so, and you’ve got to take your hat off to them.

“The run they’ve had in the last six weeks has been brilliant and we haven’t matched that.

“We let ourselves down when we lost to them at Scarborough, but we haven’t been performing badly by any means, and it’s just credit to how Durham have played in the last few weeks.

“It’s very frustrating, but it’s professional sport and you never know what might happen.

“There’s often a twist in the tail, so you never can tell.

“We’ve got two games left and we think we can win them.

“If Durham slip up this week and we win, that could mean a 10-point deficit going into the last game, and we won’t be giving up, that’s for sure.”

Yorkshire were forced to settle for a draw on the south coast after rain and bad light claimed the game’s final session. The visitors were 81-2 in their second innings, needing a further 219 from 37 overs.

Earlier, Gale and his players served up declaration bowling, enabling Sussex to score 285 runs in 32.5 overs in the morning after the hosts resumed on 48-2 in their second innings, a lead of 14.

He felt that was their likeliest route to victory on a pitch that stayed true. “I thought our best chance of winning was to chase down a total,” said Gale. “We thought it was still a good pitch, so we thought that would give us the best opportunity. If we’d gone down the road of allowing the game to take its natural course, that could have backfired on us.

“If we hadn’t taken wickets in the first hour, I don’t think Sussex would have been keen to set up a game, and they could just have batted out a draw.

“It’s disappointing because I thought our run chase was going well and that we were in a good position when the weather intervened.

“I thought we played some really good cricket throughout and that it was only the weather that prevented us from driving the game as we would have liked.

“It’s pretty gutting really, but you’ve seen the way we’ve played in this match, the way we went all out to win and never took a backward step, and that’s what we’ll be doing in our last two games.

“It’s just disappointing that the weather played such a big part on this occasion.”

Gale was pleased with the way his team responded to their defeat against Durham, with that seven-wicket result having now assumed greater significance.

After dismissing Sussex for 292, Yorkshire replied with 326 and were the better side throughout.

“I’m happy with the way the team have gone about things,” said Gale. “You always look for a reaction from the players when you lose as we did against Durham, and I think we saw that reaction.

“These lads never give up and I know they will keep going right until the end of the season. It’s going to be difficult now, but we will definitely keep fighting.”

With Durham’s match set to start 15 minutes earlier each day at 10.15am, thus allowing Nottinghamshire extra time to travel to Lord’s for their YB40 final against Glamorgan on Saturday, Yorkshire are considering asking if they can follow suit.