Somerset v Yorkshire CCC: Jonny Bairstow back as Anthony McGrath hopes to continue cup form

During that time, McGrath’s men won seven out of eight group games in the One-Day Cup before losing in the last-four against Hampshire at Scarborough.

“Hopefully, our performances in the One-Day Cup can help to inspire us,” said the Yorkshire head coach.

“We played really well throughout the 50-over competition and we’ve got to carry that on now into the Championship.

“We’ve got three big games left and although it’s a change of format, it probably suits more coming from the 50-over than it does the T20 going back into the Championship.

"The lads have been in really good form, so everyone’s confident going into Taunton.”

Yorkshire are seventh in the table, 12 points above the relegation zone (the ninth and 10th positions).

They are just 23 points behind Somerset in third, emphasising the tight nature of the table and the fact that no side has run away with it this year, with leaders Surrey having gained only one more win than Yorkshire, albeit they have a nine-point cushion to second-placed Nottinghamshire and a 26-point buffer over Somerset, who must realistically win their last three games to have any chance of the title.

McGrath believes that one more win may be enough to guarantee First Division cricket although it could be that Yorkshire do not even require that.

Either way he is keen to ensure safety as soon as possible with matches to come against two close rivals in Sussex at Hove from next Monday followed by Durham at Headingley from two weeks on Wednesday, with Durham and Worcestershire currently in the bottom two places, the latter seemingly doomed almost 40 points from safety.

“One win could be the difference now,” said McGrath.

“Durham are behind us, Sussex are pretty much level with us, so it’s all very tight in there.

“If we can have a good finish to the season and win some more games, we could finish as high as third or fourth.

"It’s going to be exciting, and there’s plenty to play for.”

Although Yorkshire are hoping to continue their good form from the 50-over Cup, when they came close to reaching their first one-day final for 23 years, they have been playing pretty well for several weeks now.

After a challenging first half of the Championship programme, when they lost four, drew two and won one of their first seven games, they found their stride with two wins and two draws heading into the 50-overs as they beat Essex and Sussex convincingly and held the top-two in Surrey and Nottinghamshire.

Indeed, going into this game, Yorkshire have lost only twice in their last 12 fixtures in all competitions, a marked improvement from earlier in the season.

They are not yet out of the woods in terms of avoiding relegation but the feelgood factor has certainly returned.

“If you take out the Hampshire semi-final and also the loss against Somerset (in the One-Day Cup group stage), we’ve not tasted that losing feeling for quite a while now,” added McGrath.

“That’s definitely a positive to take into this block of matches.

“Obviously, we’ve now got Jonny coming back (Jonny Bairstow), ‘Rev’ (Matty Revis) will be back, ‘Tommo’ (Jordan Thompson) will be back (from The Hundred), so we’ll get a bit of a boost from that side of things as well.

“In the last four Championship games we’ve got two wins on the board and played some really good stuff, so we’ll take confidence from that and target as many points as we can down in Taunton.”

Yorkshire will give a debut to new signing Mayank Agarwal, the Indian batsman, who has joined for the last three Championship games.

Agarwal replaces Imam-ul-Haq, the Pakistan batsman, who was recalled to play domestic cricket in Pakistan with a view to regaining international selection.

Agarwal, 34, who has never before played county cricket, is part of a 14-man squad missing two key bowlers in Ben Coad (hamstring) and Matt Milnes, who McGrath said felt pain in his groin after the semi-final.

However, the bowling stocks have been boosted by the return of Thompson and Revis, with Jack White and Ben Cliff the other pace options. Yorkshire’s 14-man squad includes two spinners in Dom Bess, the former Somerset off-spinner, and left-arm spinner Dan Moriarty.

Yorkshire (from): Bairstow (captain, Agarwal, Bean, Bess, Cliff, Duke, Hill, Luxton, Lyth, Moriarty, Revis, Thompson, Wharton, White.