Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth approaching another milestone as T20 starts

What a player the 36-year-old opener is, a man whose powers in theory should now be on the wane but who seems to get better with each passing year.

In a poor start to the season for Yorkshire overall, Lyth has stood tall with 603 runs in seven County Championship matches at an average of 54.81, with three hundreds and two fifties; for good measure, he captured 4-56, his best bowling figures in first-class cricket, in the game against Northamptonshire at Wantage Road on Monday.

As the club begins its T20 campaign against Worcestershire at Headingley on Thursday evening, with no online percentage increase calculator needed to work out that Lyth needs 79 more runs to hit the 4,000 figure, Whitby’s finest is looking forward to getting back to a format he has always enjoyed.

Personal milestones are always secondary to the team’s ambitions but Lyth has long relished playing T20 at Headingley, a ground where the pitches are usually conducive to runs and 200-plus totals by no means infrequent.

“The wickets in T20 - and in the four-day stuff, to be fair - have been brilliant at Headingley,” said Lyth, who famously hit 161 there in a T20 against Northamptonshire in 2017.

“Hopefully they are going to be the same this year and we can get a big crowd in for our first game and put on a show for those coming to watch.

“We’ve got a really exciting top-five or top-six, and I can’t wait to get going.”

Yorkshire have named a 14-man squad as they seek their first victory of the season.

Squad: Bess, Chohan, Cliff, Ferreira, Leech, Luxton, Lyth, Malan, Masood (captain), Moriarty, Revis, Root, Thompson, Wharton.