Yorkshire CCC forced to use One-Day Cup as a development tool says coach Ottis Gibson

In a candid assessment ahead of his team’s opening Cup game against defending champions Kent at Scarborough on Tuesday, Gibson said that the ECB “doesn’t really give the 50-over Cup much love, to be honest” and that Yorkshire effectively have no choice but to treat it as a development tool for youngsters.

Yorkshire are without nine players due to the concurrent scheduling of The Hundred as they seek their first one-day trophy for 21 years.

Harry Brook, Adam Lyth and Adil Rashid are with Northern Superchargers; Dawid Malan and Joe Root are at Trent Rockets; Jafer Chohan and Matty Fisher are with Southern Brave, and Jonny Bairstow is at Welsh Fire and Jordan Thompson at London Spirit.

“The (50-over) competition has been pushed aside, hasn’t it,” said Gibson, who won it as a player with Durham in 2007.

“Something had to move for The Hundred to fit in, and The Hundred has a four-week window alongside the 50-over.

“I don’t agree with the way it (the 50-over) is now. In my opinion, there was nothing wrong with how it used to be (held earlier during the season) and with a Lord’s final.

“That Lord’s final used to be a big deal; if you’re a cricketer, it’s something to look forward to. When Durham won the competition, we took maybe 10,000 people from the north-east, so it’s something to look forward to for your fans as well.

“To think that Yorkshire and Lancashire, for instance, could be in the final of the tournament, with the final at Trent Bridge now, that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

Yorkshire might do well to reach that final on September 16 given the number of players absent, although they see little of England’s Harry Brook, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root as it is, while sightings of Rashid in a Yorkshire jersey are seemingly less frequent than those of Lord Lucan riding Shergar across the gallops of the Lost City of Atlantis.

Gibson believes that the scheduling of the One-Day Cup - now sponsored by Metro Bank as opposed to Royal London - makes even less sense with a 50-over World Cup taking place this autumn.

“A lot of people that will be going to the World Cup won’t be playing in the 50-over Cup,” he added.

“If you’re trying to develop 50-over players with the World Cup in mind, especially during a World Cup year, then you could have scheduled it better so that some of those guys that you’re taking to the World Cup have at least played some 50-over cricket.

“The 50-over team will be going to the World Cup largely on the back of the The Hundred and the T20 Blast.

"Even if it (the One-Day Cup) had been a standalone competition at the start of the year, that might have been better.”

Gibson took a pragmatic view of The Hundred last year when he was assistant coach at Northern Superchargers while Ali Maiden, his assistant at Yorkshire, stepped up to lead the county’s 50-over team.

Gibson felt that he missed out somewhat, having cited the development of young players as one of his objectives when he came to Yorkshire, so he is looking forward now to working with a group he still believes can push for the trophy.

“I feel like with all the people we have available that we’ve still got a really good squad,” he said. “We’ll try and win the competition with those young players.

“What we’ve always said, myself and Darren (Gough, director of cricket), is that we’ll use the competition - because the ECB doesn’t really give the 50-over competition much love, to be honest - as a development tool for our young players.

“Shan (Masood, the Yorkshire captain and Pakistan batsman) is available, but he will be our only overseas player in the tournament.”

At least Yorkshire will start with a clean slate - no pun intended - after the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) chose not to hit them with a points deduction in the One-Day Cup over the racism affair.

The club was instead docked 48 points in the County Championship - effectively ending its promotion hopes - and four points in the T20 Blast, even though that competition is over and Yorkshire made no impact in it, the sort of cockeyed sanction that sums up the crisis.

Yorkshire could have been handed an easier start in the 50-over, taking on the holders first-up followed by Lancashire - the side that Kent beat in last year’s final - at Scarborough on Thursday. But Gibson is looking forward to the challenge.

“We enjoy playing at Scarborough,” he said. “It’s probably one of the best pitches in the country, so now Yorkshire has got the two best pitches in the country - Headingley and Scarborough.”

Squad: Bean, Bess, Cliff, Coad, Duke, Fraine, Hill, Leech, Luxton, Masood (captain), Mike, Revis, Shutt, Wharton.