Who would want to play for Yorkshire CCC anyway? Waters on Root absence

Joe Root, right, poses with, from left, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Vaughan and Piers Morgan on the Swilcan Bridge during 'The Hickory Challenge' prior to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland. Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images.

FOR ME, Joe Root’s absence from the final match of the County Championship season - for which the former England captain has taken his fair share of stick - overlooks a fundamental question: why would anyone want to play for Yorkshire anyway at the moment?

Although I mean that part in jest and as a provocative introduction, I also mean it part in seriousness with the club having been brought to its knees by the racism crisis and surely at the lowest ebb of any county cricket club in the history of the game.

To be clear, I have no information as to why Root did not feature in the match against Gloucestershire at Headingley, other than what Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach, stated beforehand.

“Last week, the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) said that Joe is finished for the year,” said Gibson. “That’s still the situation.”

Joe Root, right, looks on across the second hole alongside Laird Shepherd on day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews. Photo by Oisin Keniry/Getty Images.

Clearly, Root’s absence went down about as well with the Yorkshire supporters as dairy products at a vegan festival; they were understandably cheesed off to see him playing golf in Scotland while the club was relegated into Division Two.

To make matters worse, other England players did take part in the Championship’s final rounds - not least Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes, who helped Surrey beat Yorkshire at the Oval.

There is no consistency as to who is available, with the game a lottery in more ways than one, and although everyone understands that Root and his colleagues need rest and relaxation, England’s next Test is not until December, with the system almost as broken as the Yorkshire club itself.

Back to my initial point - why would anyone want to play for Yorkshire anyway at the moment?

Why, the club is in chaos, rotten to the core, with the chairman and interim director of cricket practically invisible.

The former, I would suggest, is responsible for the single most disgraceful act in the club’s history - the mass sacking of individuals with no attempt to find out whether they had done anything wrong or to listen to their concerns.

The latter, great bowler that he was, should rightly have stuck to the radio and might be better off going back to it.

Of course, every Yorkshire player wants to play for Yorkshire, but who could really say that the Yorkshire of today is a great club?

It calls to mind the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” - in other words, players and supporters love the club but most, I would say, hate what it has become and are depressed beyond words.

Root, ironically, is someone who has always put county and country on a par as much as possible and is always a positive influence when he does play for Yorkshire. Criticism of him seems unfair.

Relegation, it should also be noted, was a possibility but very much an outside one going into the Gloucestershire game - not a comment made in justification, just a statement of fact.

Frankly, if I was Root, I’d have played golf - and I don’t even like golf.