Headingley stalemate as Ottis Gibson’s Yorkshire CCC extend unbeaten start

The schedule has been gruelling, the workload tough, and although Yorkshire heeded their head coach’s call, they were forced to settle for a fifth straight draw.

Warwickshire, 57-3 in their second innings at the start of day four, 148 runs adrift, had reached 252-3 when hands were shaken, the placid conditions winning in the end.

Will Rhodes, the former Yorkshire all-rounder, scored an unbeaten 111 and Sam Hain an undefeated 109, the pair sharing 227 for the fourth-wicket.

The result left Yorkshire third in Division One, just 15 points behind leaders Surrey, which represents a good start to the season for Gibson and his men.

There is now a three-week break for the start of the T20 Blast, which for Yorkshire begins against Worcestershire at Headingley on Wednesday, and the chance to patch up one or two tired legs which have given their all in the season’s early weeks.

“I felt the boys tried really hard again on the last day of this game, but there was nothing there for us in the pitch,” said Gibson.

“It’s been a tough six weeks, and to have to bowl a team out on a very flat pitch meant that we perhaps didn’t have anything left in the tank.

“But I’m very proud of the way that the boys fought; we tried lots of different things out there, but it wasn’t to be.

“It was very tough and, fair play to those two Warwickshire batsman, they played really well, they batted very nicely and applied themselves well.”

Only a sparse crowd came to watch the last rites, with Headingley bathed beneath a bank of grey cloud. Warwickshire had already faced 40.2 overs for their 57 runs, and another tedious blockathon beckoned.

They were a little more expressive than they had been on the Saturday, though, with Hain clipping early boundaries through mid-wicket off Steve Patterson and Jordan Thompson, and Rhodes cutting Dom Bess away when the spinner dropped short.

But Warwickshire played suitably no-risk cricket on a pitch that gave nothing, encouraging neither pace men nor spinners alike.

Had Yorkshire possessed a full complement of bowlers things might have been different, especially if Haris Rauf had been able to provide a point of difference with his blistering pace.

But recent workloads had caught up with the Pakistani (although he will be available for the start of the T20 Blast, along with Pakistan team-mate Shadab Khan), with Matty Fisher and Ben Coad also on the sidelines.

If anything, batting conditions seemed to ease as opposed to deteriorate, with Hain and Rhodes proceeding with precious few alarms.

There was the odd stifled lbw shout from time to time, but nothing loud enough to wake up anyone in the crowd.

Hain, fresh from a double hundred in Warwickshire’s previous game against Northamptonshire, won the race to fifty shortly before lunch, reached from 188 balls with six fours.

Rhodes followed him to the milestone just after the break, reached from four fewer deliveries with the same number of boundaries.

Yorkshire’s last chance resided with the second new ball, taken with the total on 146-3 when the visitors still trailed by 59.

But pretty much the only damage it did was to Joe Root, who, in trying to stop a ball that came to him on the bounce at first slip when Rhodes, on 85, edged Patterson, injured his right thumb and had to go off briefly for treatment, returning with the area heavily strapped.

Both Hain and Rhodes were in the 90s at tea, Hain just pipping his partner to three figures, reached from 308 balls with 11 fours and a six. Rhodes got there from the very next delivery, from 268 balls with 12 fours, and received a warm ovation from the Headingley crowd.

As with several matches this year, this was not a game that will live in the memory.

The pitches, by and large, have been flat and unresponsive, and it has been tough going for a depleted Yorkshire line-up.

“We won our first game (against Gloucestershire at Bristol), and we have been on the front foot in all of the other games apart from the Lancashire match,” added Gibson.

“We were never at the races in that one, but this game we dominated from the beginning, which was certainly a positive.

“We’ve played well overall. We’ve created opportunities to win, but we haven’t always been able to drive home the advantage when we’ve had it, which is something that we need to work on.”

Yorkshire expect to be without their T20 captain, David Willey, for up to the first three Blast games due to IPL commitments.

But Joe Root and Harry Brook are available for the first three fixtures before joining up with the Test squad.

England’s Dawid Malan and Adil Rashid are also available from the start of the campaign, along with Tom Kohler-Cadmore.