Yorkshire CCC - Chris Waters answers YOUR questions on championship title hopes, Anthony McGrath, demutualisation and more

Thirty-one points is a big gap to make up with four games left, particularly given the weather at this time of year, although it is clearly not mathematically impossible. Yorkshire still have to play the top two, Nottinghamshire and Somerset, so have the opportunity to take points off them.

Going into the season, I actually thought Warwickshire would win the Championship and Yorkshire would finish second. Warwickshire are third at the moment, eight points off top, and Yorkshire are seventh. Ask me again at – ahem – roughly 6pm on September 27 and I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to give you a definitive answer.

What do Yorkshire need to do, recruitment wise, to help bring an end to their long wait for limited overs success?

I don’t think it’s that simple. This year they signed well, bringing in such as Hassan Ali, AJ Tye and Moeen Ali for the T20 Blast. All made key contributions and yet Yorkshire still didn’t make it past the quarter-final stage.

In the One-Day Cup, they brought in Kuldeep Yadav as an overseas player and the same outcome followed. I don’t think recruitment is the issue. Rather, it’s about getting over the line in knockout matches and overcoming that mental hurdle, if you like.

Has Anthony McGrath been a success as first-team coach?

I think Yorkshire have improved in white-ball cricket, despite the fact they haven’t won a limited-overs trophy now since McGrath was a player. I think McGrath is a man of high standards and would no doubt measure success in terms of trophies. It feels to me as if Yorkshire are going in the right direction.

At the same time, they haven’t won any silverware since 2015. I think if they could just get one trophy on the board, it would give the dressing room a huge amount of confidence and impetus, which is why this year’s Craig Overton-inspired T20 quarter-final defeat against Somerset was such a blow for the club. If Yorkshire had won that match, I’d have fancied them at Finals Day.

Should more Yorkshire first-team games be played at grounds around the county?

I think a 4-3 split would be better in the Championship – in other words, four home matches at Headingley and the other three at Scarborough or York, as opposed to the current 5-2 split. I would like to see at least one T20 home game played at an outground, while there is talk of Yorkshire taking first-team cricket back to Barnsley in the near future, which I think is a positive step.

Yorkshire is a big county, so the more geographical coverage, the better. Scarborough, however, is the jewel in my eyes and must be protected at all costs.

What kind of time-frame are we looking at before the demutualisation process is completed and what are the benefits to Yorkshire?

The club is hoping to put it to the vote next year, although there is a fair amount of consultation to go before then.

The benefits are perhaps best summed up in the club’s new Chasing Glory strategy, which seeks to “develop the next generation of Yorkshire and England players through a world-class pathway, transform Headingley into one of the finest cricket venues in the world and the undisputed home of international cricket in the north, and create a club capable of consistently competing for trophies”.

That cannot be done, say Yorkshire, without a significant injection of outside investment. I fail to see how anyone can argue against that, although money is clearly no guarantee of on-field success.

Personally speaking, I am fairly relaxed about the subject per se and find it hard to get worked up about it. To those who are against it, the question I would ask is this: what do you think you would be losing exactly if the club was no longer a members’ club? The County Championship has already been marginalised. The 50-over Cup has already been reduced to a development competition.

The game is moving in directions that are anathema to people like me and traditional spectators. So what is it that you would be protecting exactly by digging in your heels? If I was a Yorkshire member, my primary concern would be that the club/Headingley is not left behind in cricket’s changing order, so I would vote in favour of demutualisation and trust in those who are running the club to make the right decisions in Yorkshire’s best interests.

Who, in your opinion, has been the one player to have made the most positive impact at Yorkshire since the turn of the century?

By “impact”, I assume you mean not just on the field. With that in mind, I’d find it difficult to separate Joe Root and Adil Rashid. Root because he is such a great ambassador for the club and a general class act in everything he does. Rashid because of what he has done to advance the cause of British Asian players.

Rashid has also flown the flag for leg-spin bowling not just in Yorkshire but in the country as a whole. My only frustration is that Rashid has not played for Yorkshire for several years and, presumably, will never do again. I find that a huge shame.

Of all the Yorkshire players I have covered, Rashid would be my favourite bowler to watch and Darren Lehmann my favourite batsman.

Was Joe Root the right man to be appointed England captain?

I wouldn’t have appointed him had there been other serious candidates from within the team, because I would want him to focus on his batting, but it can’t be denied that he has done a magnificent job in his short time back.

His statesmanship and leadership qualities have shone through. English cricket is very lucky to have him.