Stay up, finish strong: the challenge for Yorkshire CCC

Their immediate priority is survival. First and foremost, they need to make sure they stay in Division One of the County Championship. After that, it is about finishing as high up the table as possible.

Stay up. Finish strongly. Take what can be taken from another season without silverware. Not the sexiest of targets, perhaps. Just the ugly essentials that need to be taken care of.

Yorkshire, at this stage, seem unlikely to go down.

They are eighth in the table, one place above the relegation zone, but they are by no means the favourites to occupy one of the bottom two positions.

It is hard to see how Hampshire - cast adrift at the foot of the division and 32 points behind Yorkshire - can haul themselves out of trouble at this late stage.

Yorkshire’s win against them on the south coast towards the end of last month felt like a significant result at the time - and it feels even more significant now.

There wasn’t much in it - 39 runs, to be exact. But Hampshire surely blew their best chance of staying up with that result and need a miracle.

This week, while Yorkshire entertain seventh-placed Essex at Headingley, just two points above them, Hampshire take on title-chasing Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. Then, next week, Hampshire visit fellow strugglers Leicestershire before signing off against fourth-placed Sussex in Southampton.

Hampshire realistically need to win all three games and hope for the best.

All of which means that Yorkshire need only worry about Leicestershire at this stage, who are seven points behind them in the final relegation spot.

In addition to their match against Hampshire next week, Leicestershire take on leaders Somerset at Grace Road this week and end their campaign with another tricky fixture at third-placed Warwickshire.

Leicestershire versus Hampshire is anyone’s game; otherwise, you would not bank on either of them winning their other two fixtures.

That would obviously play into Yorkshire’s hands, although they have a difficult finish to the season themselves.

After Essex, they face Somerset at Headingley next week and round off against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.

Yorkshire are thus likely to have a big say in the title race - just not in the way they had hoped.

Nothing, of course, can be taken for granted. The margins are fine; had Yorkshire beaten Surrey at The Oval last week, they would not have been out of title contention mathematically, albeit still behind Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Sussex in the league.

As it was, Surrey’s one-wicket win boosted their own hopes of staying up as they climbed to sixth - four points above Yorkshire, with games to come away to Sussex, at home to Glamorgan and away to Somerset.

It is certainly tight, with Glamorgan, Surrey, Essex and Yorkshire looking over their shoulders, while even fourth-placed Sussex are not entirely safe.

But Hampshire look gone and Leicestershire still have an awful lot to do; there is no reason for Yorkshire, or their rivals, to panic just yet.

One thing Yorkshire will be keen to improve is their form with the bat. Only George Hill has topped 500 runs for them in this year’s Championship - his return of 512 at 30.11 complementing a haul of 39 wickets at 19.92.

With the exception of Joe Root, who averaged 59.25 from a small sample size of three appearances, every Yorkshire player apart from Hill is averaging below 30 with the bat.

Indeed, the club’s haul of five hundreds in this year’s competition is the third-lowest behind Warwickshire (surprisingly), with four, and Hampshire (less surprisingly) with two.

The top two of Somerset and Nottinghamshire have had 25 individual centuries between them. That is surely no coincidence.

With the ball, Yorkshire have the firepower of a side good enough to be challenging for honours, Hill’s work in the seam bowling department ably complemented by the likes of Jack White and Ben Coad.

Dom Bess has quietly chipped in with 27 wickets in conditions rarely favourable for spin bowlers and also played his part with the bat lower down the order (445 runs at 29.66).

If Yorkshire can put decent runs on the board in their final three games, there should be no concerns about their bowling quality.

Bowlers win matches, batsmen set them up, or so the old saying goes.

Barring something extraordinary, Yorkshire’s hopes of winning the title are now over.

But they have a job to do in these last three games - and plenty still to play for.