Northamptonshire v Yorkshire CCC: Visitors go in search of first win

Whereas Rishi Sunak’s mob has a 22 per cent gap to make up in the opinion polls before July 4, Ottis Gibson’s second-bottom crew are 26 points behind Middlesex in the second and final promotion place.

As the song that could be heard blasting out while Sunak announced the big day outside Downing Street put it, as the rain fell symbolically on our dear leader’s head, “Things Can Only Get Better”, with Yorkshire winless in six attempts this season and victorious only four times in Gibson’s 33 Championship matches in charge.

“We made our ambitions clear from the start,” said Gibson, the county’s head coach. “We want to get promoted, so we have to play better cricket.

“If we weren’t putting ourselves in a position to win, it would be a tougher situation. I still feel confident in the group we have.”

Yorkshire have signed Vishwa Fernando, the Sri Lankan fast bowler, for the next three matches and Gibson added: “We have some overseas help who could make a difference.

"I feel we have enough to help us achieve our ambitions. The thing about county cricket is the games come very quickly.

"There’s no time to feel sorry for yourself; you have to dust yourself off and go again.”

Fernando, 32, met his new team-mates at Hove, where Yorkshire slipped from 158-6 to 161 all-out in pursuit of 183 for victory.

The left-armer has been drafted in due to an injury crisis that has left the club without four frontline pace bowlers in Ben Coad, Matty Fisher, Matt Milnes and Mickey Edwards.

Fisher damaged an ankle in the previous match against Glamorgan at Headingley, while Milnes and Edwards are unlikely to feature again this summer due to stress fractures of the back and foot respectively.

To compound matters, Coad suffered a back injury at Hove, which means that Yorkshire are down to the bare bones bowling-wise (there had even been talk of them scouring the loan market this week, with Surrey’s Conor McKerr a possible option).

As it is, and in addition to Fernando, Yorkshire’s pace/seam bowling options at Wantage Road are Jordan Thompson, George Hill and Matty Revis.

They have also named two spinners in a 13-man squad – Dan Moriarty and Dom Bess, plus the 21-year-old batsman Will Luxton, whose solitary first-class appearance was against Surrey at Scarborough almost two years ago.

For Hill, the 23-year-old all-rounder, this game marks a return to the ground where he made his maiden first-class hundred in 2022: a fine innings of 151 not out.

He is pleased with the way his game is developing.

“I’m extremely happy to be playing the games I’m playing in the red-ball stuff,” said Hill, who was statistically Yorkshire’s most successful bowler at Hove last week, with seven wickets in the match.

“But there is still plenty to improve on, and there’s a lot more to come.

“Last year, I had lots of opportunities to get hundreds and just couldn’t kick on often enough, for example.

“I’ve batted everywhere from two to eight, and I’ve also bowled in different scenarios, so I’m learning a lot.”

Northants, too, are desperate for a victory, having started the season with five draws and a defeat.

They sit seven points and two places above Yorkshire in fifth, having been thwarted in their last match away to Derbyshire, who held out for a draw with nine wickets down.

This will be Yorkshire’s first game this season without Joe Root or Harry Brook, who each played five times in the opening six rounds.

Yorkshire were unable to win any of those fixtures despite the fact that both contributed two centuries and two fifties; indeed, the first-choice top-five of Adam Lyth, Fin Bean, Shan Masood, Root and Brook have all registered at least one three-figure score.

The need for a victory is palpably clear, with this match marking the halfway stage of the Championship programme, a damning indictment on the lunacy of the schedule, with four months of the season still to go.

Yorkshire are 36 points behind leaders Sussex, their stated ambition not simply to win promotion but also the title outright.

For now, simply a win – any win – would suffice.

Yorkshire’s 13-man squad: Bean, Bess, Fernando, Hill, Leach, Luxton, Lyth, Masood (captain), Moriarty, Revis, Thompson, Tattersall, Wharton.