Half-term report - Yorkshire heading in right direction, insists Andrew Gale

ANDREW GALE has delivered his half-term report on Yorkshire’s County Championship season. The first team coach feels that they have been “decent without being good” and insists that they are “going in the right direction”. Yorkshire are fourth in the First Division after two wins, four draws and one defeat.

“We’re in a good place halfway through,” said Gale. “We’ve only lost one game (against Warwickshire at York last week). We didn’t play terribly in that match, and it could have gone either way. It went down to the very last session on the very last day. Overall, I think we’ve been decent without being good. I think we’re improving, but we’ve got to be more consistent.

“When we’re in positions of strength, as we were against Warwickshire at times, we have to make sure that we hammer them home. That’s what the best teams in the league do; that’s what Championship-winning teams do. But we’re definitely going in the right direction, and we’re just after that bit more consistency in the second half of the season.”

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Yorkshire embark on the “back seven” Championship games, as it were, when they face Surrey at Scarborough from Sunday. It is the first of three back-to-back Championship matches as they then play Essex at Chelmsford before hosting Somerset at Emerald Headingley. After a month’s break from Championship cricket from mid-July, when the T20 Blast takes centre stage, Yorkshire return to Scarborough to face Nottinghamshire. They conclude their Championship programme in September against Somerset at Taunton, Kent at Headingley and Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

On the mark: Ben Coad celebrates taking one of the 27 wickets he has taken in the first half of the season to leave him top of Yorkshires wicket-taking charts. (Picture: Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com)On the mark: Ben Coad celebrates taking one of the 27 wickets he has taken in the first half of the season to leave him top of Yorkshires wicket-taking charts. (Picture: Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com)
On the mark: Ben Coad celebrates taking one of the 27 wickets he has taken in the first half of the season to leave him top of Yorkshires wicket-taking charts. (Picture: Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com)

Next week’s visit of Surrey to Scarborough is a repeat of their meeting there last summer, when the visitors won by seven wickets en route to the title. It extended Yorkshire’s poor recent record at North Marine Road, where they have lost their last four Championship matches and five of the last six. In an effort to arrest that slide, Yorkshire are training at Scarborough today and tomorrow in a blank week from first-team action.

“Our record there over the last few years hasn’t been great, so we want to make sure we’re on the front foot from the start of the Surrey game,” said Gale. “I feel we’ve come unstuck a little bit at Scarborough with the pace and bounce in the pitch, and we just want to tick that box and make sure that we’re as well prepared as we can be. We’ve got a bit of downtime and the schedule allows us to do that, so we’ll go and talk about the lengths that you should bowl and the shots that you can play and the shots that you can’t play at Scarborough, because it’s a very different pitch to what you play on in the rest of the country.”

Yorkshire will have fast bowler Duanne Olivier back for that match after he injured his right hip in the game at Surrey earlier this month. Olivier missed the fixture against Warwickshire, whose three-wicket victory was a big blow to Yorkshire’s hopes of winning the Championship, which now appear to rest on their ability to combat Somerset twice.

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“Duanne is fine,” said Gale. “He’s had no pain and a scan didn’t show a tear or anything, so I imagine he’ll play and that he’ll be a handful. Rich (Pyrah, bowling coach) will work him this week on how to be successful at Scarborough, bearing in mind the pace and bounce, and how best to utilise those factors. It will be a big boost to have him back, that’s for sure.”

Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale (Picture: SWPix.com)Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale (Picture: SWPix.com)
Yorkshire head coach Andrew Gale (Picture: SWPix.com)

Gale did not publicly declare the Warwickshire defeat to be a blow to his side’s title chances for the simple reason that he has consistently played down any idea of them being contenders. There is no doubt, though, that Yorkshire had hitherto shown themselves capable of mounting a challenge only for their progress to be interrupted somewhat by a flurry of rain-affected games.

Gale did concede that the weather had disturbed Yorkshire’s rhythm. “I feel we’ve been robbed of a few results with the weather as well and probably lost a little bit of momentum with that,” he said.

“We went to Guildford (to face Surrey) and it was stop-start, for example, and the rain has maybe knocked the wind out of our sails a little bit.

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“But I think people can see that, in general, we are moving forward with a young squad and making progress. It was disappointing to lose to Warwickshire, but we have to work harder now and move on quickly.”