McGrath: Players have driven Yorkshire's response to Blast heartbreak
ANTHONY MCGRATH says Yorkshire's response to their dramatic T20 Blast quarter-final defeat has been driven by the players themselves after the squad held a meeting to reset and refocus ahead of the One-Day Cup.
McGrath has been encouraged by the way his side have regrouped following last month's heartbreaking loss to Somerset at Headingley, where Craig Overton's unbeaten 79 from 30 balls transformed the visitors from 82-8 in the 15th over into winners by two wickets in pursuit of 162.
Yorkshire were "nowhere near" their best in the immediate aftermath of that match, according to McGrath, suffering a 50-run defeat to Hampshire in their One-Day Cup opener at Scarborough, a game that the head coach nevertheless felt his side could have won.
However, they have since won four out of five matches to move within touching distance of the knockout stages in the 50-over tournament.
"The lads have driven it," McGrath said. "They all got together without the coaches and spoke about wanting to front up, own up and have a really good run in this competition. What's gone is gone. From that conversation they've responded really well because they wanted to make a real impact in this tournament."
Yorkshire bounced back from the Hampshire defeat with four successive victories, edging Glamorgan by two wickets at Neath before hammering Sussex by 184 runs on the DLS method at Hove. They followed that with convincing wins over reigning champions Worcestershire and Durham at York.
The run ended with Sunday's 35-run defeat to Middlesex at Lord's, a result that saw the London club replace Yorkshire at the top of Group B.
One more victory could be enough to secure a top-three finish. Yorkshire face Derbyshire at Scarborough on Friday before concluding the group stage against Essex at Chelmsford next Tuesday.
The top three teams in each group qualify for the knockout stages, with the group winners advancing directly to a home semi-final on August 16. The second and third-placed sides meet in cross-group play-offs on August 14.
McGrath insists Yorkshire's focus remains solely on winning their remaining group games rather than worrying about any route through the knockouts.
"We want to try and win every game," he said. "If you do get through, it's better to go straight through to the semi, of course, so you kind of have a couple more days to prepare, but at this stage we'd take a quarter-final just to get through."
McGrath believes Yorkshire's position reflects the consistency they have shown throughout the white-ball campaign, though he is reluctant to make bold claims before silverware has been won.
"I don't want to get into football clichés about going in the right direction and things like that," he said. "Until you get silverware, it's hard to say we're a good team. But you can see how we're playing at the minute. The lads are getting great confidence and we're beating good teams."
With the One-Day Cup entering its decisive phase, McGrath believes Yorkshire must embrace pressure if they are to take the vital next steps.
After losing last season's One-Day Cup semi-final and this year's T20 Blast quarter-final, he says repeated exposure to knockout cricket is the only way to learn and develop.
"If you're going to be a top player, you've got to want those moments," he said. "If you run away from them, you'll always get so far and just miss out. It's the same for any team. The teams winning trophies now will all have had disappointments building up to that point. The test is when we get there again, can we get over the line?"
McGrath fronted up straight after the T20 defeat, paying tribute to Somerset and Overton especially. The Somerset No 9 struck five sixes and eight fours in a remarkable innings that will live long in the memory.
"I must admit I woke up the next day thinking it was a bad dream," McGrath said. "It was probably a one-in-100 result, maybe a one-in-500. All you can do is use it as fuel for the rest of the season and going forwards, and that's what the lads are trying to do. We've also got to remember what we've done well so far and, if we ever find ourselves in that position again, you'd like to think that we can defend 70 off four overs."
McGrath continued: "For the lads, the One-Day Cup is another great opportunity and they've responded really well up to now. We're not going to win every game, but we've set our standards in how we start games and how we go about things, and overall we've done that well.
"We're not just winning on certain types of surfaces either. We're winning in different ways, and that's one of the biggest improvements I've seen in our white-ball cricket this year.
"Hopefully that's a stepping stone to becoming a really good team."