Patterson departure curious in more ways than one - Chris Waters

“So why sack the most consistent bowler at the club,” wrote someone. “Talk about double standards.”

“Should of (sic) offered him a contract?” said another.

“P45 is your birthday card,” observed somebody else.

“Pity that you sacked him, then!” another chimed in.

“Happy Birthday Patto .. BTW you are sacked in favour of some 3rd rate clowns that couldn’t bowl a decent spell on a green seamer,” was another observation.

There have been plenty like that in the last few weeks.

Leaving aside one’s instant recoil when an adult is wished a happy 39th birthday on a public forum, along with accompanying emojis of a birthday cake, a partying face and a thumbs up sign (what is this, playschool ?), there is a serious point to be made.

Why exactly have Yorkshire released Patterson, one of their most consistent and reliable bowlers?

Why couldn’t they have offered him another one-year contract, say, and kept him on board for longer?

It is rumoured that such intimations were actually bandied around last winter, at a time when Patterson - and indeed all of the players - showed great loyalty to the club during a period of unprecedented turmoil and unanimous disquiet at Yorkshire’s decision to sack all of its coaching and medical staff due to the racism crisis.

Then, during the season just ended, Patterson was the club’s second-highest wicket-taker in the County Championship First Division with 37 at 27.56, behind only Jordan Thompson (42 at 34.73).

In other words, there would seem to be plenty of life in the old dog yet.

Indeed, just as the maxim ‘if you’re good enoug h, you’re old enough’ is commonly held, so it is true that if you’re good enough, it doesn’t matter - or at least it shouldn’t - how old you are.

Patterson may have reached an age now where the old bones start to creak a bit more in the mornings and is hardly a spring chicken in sporting terms - more of a winter chicken, in fact.

But he is not yet ready for Book at Bedtime on Radio 4 and a Stannah stairlift, and experience and nous counts for much.

His fitness record also stands up - not least in a bowling attack that has been deprived for long periods of new-ball pair Matty Fisher and Ben Coad through injury.

Coaches, of course, must make their decisions and they stand or fall on them.

If Ben Mike and Matt Milnes, say, whom Yorkshire have signed from Leicestershire and Kent respectively, go on to deliver the goods, then Darren Gough, the Yorkshire interim director of cricket, may feel himself vindicated.

However, if Kent were rumoured to have been sufficiently interested in Patterson to offer him a contract to continue his career, and they are a First Division club compared to now Second Division Yorkshire, then why not the county which Patterson has served with such distinction?

If anything, you could argue that he would be more likely to succeed in the lower division, where the cricket, by definition, is not of the same standard.

Eleven words in Patterson’s farewell statement said it all - “after being told I was no longer wanted by the club”, began one of his sentences.

Some have asked, quite reasonably in this view, why Yorkshire do not do a U-turn and reverse their decision; after all, Kent did one on Darren Stevens a few years back.

Unfortunately, the new Yorkshire does not seem to be a club made of such substance, even if it was so minded, although there is always a first time for ever ything – and who doesn’t like surprises?

Something else left a sour taste when Patterson announced last Friday that he has now retired from professional cricket and does not have “the energy or the passion to play for any other club” than Yorkshire.

It was the Yorkshire part of his retirement announcement.

To be clear, Andy Dawson, the club’s chief operating officer, spoke well and warmly of someone who has been “consistently brilliant on the field” and “hugely supportive of me personally and all club activities off the pitch as well”.

“Cap number 170 will go down as a great of Yorkshire cricket,” added Dawson.

“We thank and congratulate him on a truly wonderful career and wish him all the best in his next chapter.”

Rather, it was the fact that Dawson was the man quoted and not Gough or first-team coach Ottis Gibson.

Should it really have been the club’s chief operating officer who responded on behalf of the club in Patterson’s retirement announcement?

Nit-picking, perhaps, but it was not a g ood lo ok; some might even say it was slightly disrespectful.