No “free pass” as Ottis Gibson seeks more from Yorkshire CCC’s young guns

Yorkshire were knocked out of the competition on Sunday when a combination of their defeat at leaders Leicestershire, and Lancashire’s win against Middlesex at Lord’s, meant that they could no longer reach the knockout stages, thus consigning the club to an eighth successive year without silverware.

Yorkshire have been forced to field a number of youngsters in the 50-over Cup due to the concurrent scheduling of the Hundred, with no fewer than nine of their squad involved in a divisive format that is heavily impacting the men’s county game.

But as Yorkshire prepared for their final fixture against Middlesex at Radlett on Tuesday, with the hosts also unable to qualify in the proverbial dead rubber, head coach Gibson said that more is needed for a club of Yorkshire’s size and stature.

“Some might think that you get a free pass because you’re a young player, but at the same time this is still a competitive performance environment and you’re still playing for one of the best clubs in the country,” he said.

“We still expect them to perform to a certain standard but, unfortunately, in the last couple of games, and in the tournament per se, I don’t feel that we’ve reached the standards that we’ve set ourselves.

“The disappointment and frustration is that we have a lot of really good conversations, and I feel like we understand the learnings as to where we’re going wrong, the mistakes that we’re making and the things that we can do better, but we’re not applying them.

“It’s disappointing all round in the way that we’re applying ourselves to the game at the moment.”

Gibson was especially frustrated with Sunday’s defeat because a poor batting display came hot on the heels of one at York just three days earlier. After slumping to 36-7 against Hampshire at York, his men crashed to 91-8 against Leicestershire in a costly collapse.

“We obviously have some young batters trying to make their way in the game, and all I keep saying to them is that they have to apply the learnings into the next opportunity they get,” added Gibson.

“Leicester was particularly disappointing because we’d spoken about the previous game and the fact that if the pitch was difficult again with the new ball our skillset is to try to nullify that, but we weren’t able to do it.

“We knew it was a used pitch, so you’ve got to work hard up front to get through the new ball and we didn’t do that, and you can’t afford to make mistakes against the team who are top of the league, and Leicester played well.

“Over the last two games, we’ve not been able to lay the foundation that allows the middle-order to flourish.”

A glance at the statistics highlights the predicament. Of those who have played the maximum five innings, with two of the seven games washed out, only Harry Duke (170 runs at 42.5) can be relatively pleased. Fin Bean, his opening partner, has scored 83 runs at 16.60, captain Shan Masood 121 runs at 24.20, and James Wharton 89 runs at 29.66. George Hill, who has batted four times at No 4 and once at No 7, has made 66 runs at 13.2.

“We’ve had guys get starts who haven’t been able to make big scores,” said Gibson. “The Leicester guys who got in went and got scores, Handscomb and Mulder, and that’s the difference.

“But I’m happy with the batting order. We’ve got some good players but this is the reality of where we are at the moment.”

Yorkshire will hand a first appearance of the season to Ben Cliff at Radlett. The 20-year-old pace bowler, whose only other first-team outing was against Northamptonshire at York in the One-Day Cup last year, will replace Ben Coad.

“‘Cliffy’ will play and he’s been practising really well,” said Gibson. “It’s been tough on him; in the second team, he’s been one of the standout bowlers, and he deserves the opportunity.

“He swings the new ball and can be accurate, and I think one of his best skill-sets is in the middle overs. He bowls really good slower balls, he’s got good change-ups, and hopefully if we bat first, we’ve put enough runs on the board so he can get into his work with some runs to defend.”

Of Coad, with Yorkshire seizing a chance to rest a prize asset, Gibson said: “I don’t think there’s any more need to use ‘Coady’ at the moment.

“We’ll give him a break and freshen him up for the four-day cricket to come.

“Coady has been brilliant in this one-day tournament at the start of the innings, bowling 10 overs straight up, very economically and taking wickets too.

“Also, the way that he is around the group, speaking to the other young bowlers and helping them - that’s the value that he adds.”