Yorkshire CCC confident of enjoying home life again if the pitches play ball

Four of those 17 fixtures have ended in defeat and 12 (including eight of the last nine) have been drawn.

If Yorkshire are to mount a serious bid to win their first title for a decade, it would seem imperative that they flick the switch on a record as likely as anything to derail their chances.

Taking care of their own performance, as ever, is the first port of call as Yorkshire look to get their season up and running at the second attempt following last week’s defeat to Hampshire in Southampton.

There was a sense that they were not too far away in that match, improving steadily as it progressed, and there is reason for optimism that they will have too much for a Worcestershire side unanimously tipped by the bookmakers to finish bottom of Division One.

Beyond that, though, the question of how to get more positive results at Headingley remains pressing, with some of the recent surfaces so lifeless that a paramedic might have pronounced them dead at the scene.

There might not be too many tears shed, in fact, that Yorkshire have one less Championship match at Headingley this year (with one going to York and the usual two to Scarborough), but with fixtures to follow at Leeds next month against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire, followed by Durham in September, that still equates to over a quarter of the four-day programme.

Commenting on the importance of getting results at Headingley, where in remarkable contrast 22 of the last 23 Test matches have produced a positive outcome, Anthony McGrath, the Yorkshire head coach, said: “It’s something that we’ve talked about in the winter.

“The results are there for everyone to see. There’s been a lot of draws.

“The wicket, hopefully, will give our seamers some help. The balance of the team is something we’ll have to look at as well.”

Yorkshire played a behind-closed-doors friendly against Lancashire at Headingley at the end of last month and McGrath was pleased with that surface.

“I was quite happy with the wicket in that friendly where it did assist (the bowlers) and it did carry a little bit more,” he said.

“If we can just get a bit more carry and assistance that first couple of days (of a game), we know it’s going to be a decent wicket, and I think we’ve got the seamers to exploit that.”

Absent for the time being is new signing Ben Sears, the New Zealand pace bowler, who is having a heel injection ahead of his foreshadowed debut at Durham next Friday.

Sears starred in the recent 3-0 one-day international home whitewash of Pakistan, taking a five-wicket haul in each of his two appearances.

Ben Cliff, the 22-year-old pace bowler, is also missing after sustaining a side injury in Southampton.