Ottis Gibson hails young players' progress after Yorkshire CCC Cup disappointment

It extended to 22 years the club’s wait for a white-ball/limited overs trophy.

“We’ve used this competition for development over the last three years and a number of players have made their debuts in this competition and made massive strides,” said Gibson.

“Finlay Bean made his first-team debut in this competition and is now playing very well in the County Championship.

“Ben Cliff made his debut in this and has since made huge strides, especially this season, but over the course of the last couple. He looks a really good prospect for the future for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

“We’ve seen Yash Vagadia make a debut. We’ve seen Noah Kelly make a debut.

“One of the things that we’ve said all along is that we were always going to promote and project young Yorkshire talent.

“We’ve done that over the course of this competition.”

Yorkshire finished sixth out of the nine teams in Group B, with the top-three securing qualification.

Glamorgan and Group A winners Somerset advanced straight to a home semi-final on Sunday, while Friday’s quarter-finals will see Leicestershire host Hampshire in Leicester and Warwickshire face Worcestershire at Edgbaston (actually a home tie for the latter, whose New Road ground is being used by England Lions).

Yorkshire won four and lost four of their eight fixtures, achieving a perfect - if unwanted - win-loss sequence of WLWLWLWL.

They had to beat Glamorgan in Cardiff on Wednesday to stand any chance of sneaking through - and they also needed Gloucestershire to beat Leicestershire and somehow to overhaul Gloucestershire’s net run-rate in the process, none of which happened.

“It didn’t go the way we hoped that it would,” said Gibson of the Cardiff defeat.

“When we turned up the prospects of getting into the top three were very remote, but we still wanted to put on a good show.

“It didn’t go our way, and we’re a bit disappointed that we didn’t play better.

“Overall, we’ve played really well and won games, but we’ve also let ourselves down and lost games.”

Yorkshire now have a break from action before attention returns to their quest to win promotion from Division Two of the County Championship.

Gibson’s third-placed side face leaders Sussex at Scarborough from August 22, just one place and four points behind Middlesex in the second and final promotion position.

They round off their Championship programme with games against Middlesex at Headingley (August 29-September 1), Leicestershire at Leicester (September 9-12), Glamorgan at Cardiff (September 17-20) and Northamptonshire at Headingley (September 26-29).