Poor 40-over showing should not be pinned on youngsters

Shorn of Ryan Sidebottom, whom first-team coach Jason Gillespie calls the Bentley, and Steve Patterson, whom he refers to as “the ever-reliable” Toyota, Yorkshire are without their two best bowlers in 40-over cricket, a deliberate strategy designed to keep them fresh for the important business of the County Championship.

The policy is controversial, the benefits conclusive.

Yorkshire lead the Championship at the season’s halfway stage, with Sidebottom and Patterson having shared 43 wickets and performed superbly.

Just as Yorkshire want to be known as the best Championship side in the country, however, they do not want to be known as the worst one-day team.

At present, they have the poorest record of the 18 counties in YB40, this latest defeat – their sixth in seven games – leaving them grateful for the presence of Unicorns in keeping them off the foot of Group C.

It is a fine balancing act in terms of selection, and a steep learning curve for the younger bowlers brought into the side.

At the same time, it would be lazily convenient – and wholly unfair – to subscribe Yorkshire’s one-day struggles to the county’s understandable decision to give youth its chance.

As Yorkshire lost by 36 runs in a match reduced by rain to 27 overs per side, Dan Hodgson’s career-best 76 helping them to 193 in reply to the home team’s 229-6 after the visitors won the toss, perhaps the most pertinent statistic was that five of the Yorkshire players had made at least 60 List A appearances whereas eight of the Gloucestershire side had made fewer than 40.

Gloucestershire, however, are second in the table with five wins from seven games, level on points with Somerset with a match in hand.

The reality is that Yorkshire have not been playing well enough collectively in this competition – not that the younger element are letting them down.

On a grim day in keeping with a grim ground, even more so at present with flats being built at the Ashley Down Road end and with a new pavilion under construction, Gloucestershire got off to a flier when play began at 3.50pm.

Hamish Marshall and Michael Klinger added 52 in seven overs and Klinger and Chris Dent 58 in seven as Gloucestershire reached 110-2 at the halfway stage.

Dent’s 56 from 40 balls with four fours and four sixes was the highest score, complemented by an unbeaten 46 from Ian Cockbain and 45 from Klinger.

Iain Wardlaw was the most successful bowler with 3-44, two of those wickets coming in his final over which also went for 17 runs, while young Ben Coad came back well after his first over went for 12 to finish with 1-34 from five.

Yorkshire’s reply was dominated by the fine innings from 23-year-old Hodgson, who faced 55 balls and struck nine fours and two sixes to play himself firmly into Twenty20 contention.

Rich Pyrah hit 34 from 23 balls, while David Payne recovered from a scattergun start to take 4-44 from five overs.

Display of the day

Dan Hodgson: Hit a one-day career-best 76 as Yorkshire slipped to defeat in the south west.