Tom Kohler-Cadmore switches targets in bid to help Yorkshire CCC claim Championship and T20 double

Tom Kohler-Cadmore, the Yorkshire batsman, faced only four more deliveries and struck 71 in the Superchargers’ innings, with five sixes and four fours.

On any other day, and had Superchargers won, Kohler-Cadmore would surely have been hero of the match.

That did not bother him one iota – only the defeat, Kohler-Cadmore admitting, with typical selflessness, that “next time I’ve got to go on and probably score a hundred from that position, because it’s all about trying to win games of cricket for the side that I’m playing for.”

That side will now be Yorkshire once more, with the inaugural Hundred finishing today.

After a disappointing campaign by his own high standards, albeit the sort that any player can experience from time to time, Kohler-Cadmore, who turned 27 on Thursday, looks to be running into form at just the right time as Yorkshire chase the domestic double of the County Championship and the T20 Blast.

Not that the tall and powerful right-hander has ever looked out of form as such.

Although averaging 14 in the Championship and with one half-century for the club in 17 innings this season in all cricket, away to his former county Worcestershire in the T20 Blast, Kohler-Cadmore has more often than not ‘got in’ with just four of those innings single-figure scores.

In fact, he seemed to have turned a corner with the half-century at New Road only to shortly afterwards suffer the misfortune of a broken finger.

Now his sizzling sign-off innings in The Hundred betokens well for what he might produce in the business end of Yorkshire’s season, which begins with a T20 quarter-final against Sussex on Monday before the club returns to Championship duty the following week.

“I haven’t had the runs I’d like this year, but if I contribute in the back-end of the season, and I win us a couple of games, and it means we win the Championship, or it means we win the T20, or both, that would be great,” he said.

“That’s when you want to be doing well, when it really counts, and if I can do that then I’ll still look back on the season and obviously be a little bit frustrated on the runs side of things, but for the team, if we’ve managed to win trophies, then I’m going to be happy.”

Despite his challenging year, there is no doubt that Kohler-Cadmore is one of Yorkshire’s best and most versatile players.

He has constructed too many fine innings now in first-class cricket to be considered simply as a white-ball force, while his fielding – and specifically his catching – is a part of his game that deserves more recognition.

Not that he is taking his business for granted.

For while ‘TKC’ was doing his stuff in The Hundred, a young crop of Yorkshire players were springing to prominence in the Royal London Cup.

Certainly one would have few qualms about seeing 18-year-old Will Luxton, say, walking out to bat in a Championship match in the very near future, among the more impressive talents to have burst on the scene this summer.

Kohler-Cadmore pays such players fulsome credit.

“They’re putting everyone under pressure now,” he said, “the lads coming through, and if you’ve got a strong second team then your first team is going to be doing very well, and that’s what we’ve definitely got at the minute.

“The boys are coming in and performing and doing really well, so there’s no kind of shoo-ins and there’s no way players can take it easy, or anything like that, when there’s people trying to take your spot. That’s only going to make us stronger as well in the coming years.”

Although The Hundred was his focus in recent weeks, Kohler-Cadmore kept a keen eye on Yorkshire’s progress in the Royal London Cup, with interim coach Rich Pyrah leading the side to the knockout stages.

“We had a brilliant 50-over competition with the boys who came in,” reflected Kohler-Cadmore. “Obviously they lost to Essex [in the quarter-final eliminator], but Essex had a very strong side out and for our young lads to have done what they did was great.

“Confidence is running high throughout the camp with the season we’ve had, and if we can have a big few weeks now, then hopefully we can finish off the summer on a real high.”

What of The Hundred? Has TKC enjoyed the experience?

“The competition has been unbelievable,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute of the games and how it’s all gone about.

“We played some very good cricket at times, but lost a couple of key moments that probably cost us in the end, but I think we played a great brand of cricket and entertained the crowds.

“For The Hundred going forward, I think it’s going to be outstanding, and I see the crowds only getting fuller and fuller as the years go on.

“Hopefully it’s growing cricket, that’s the main thing, and hopefully in 10 years’ time we’ll see the real benefit as more youngsters start to play cricket which is only going to make county cricket stronger which, in turn, is only going to make international cricket stronger.”