David Willey urges Yorkshire CCC to adopt smart thinking in T20 Blast

Persistent drizzle led to the umpires pulling the plug at 3pm – half-an-hour after the scheduled start – as Yorkshire suffered their second washout in five matches in this year’s competition to go with two defeats and just one win.

As attention now turns to the double-header at home to Worcestershire on Friday and Birmingham Bears on Sunday, Willey has taken stock of Yorkshire’s T20 performances so far.

He feels that they need to play a bit more intelligently to realise their goals, acknowledging that the squad is packed with power and ability.

“We can just be a bit smarter,” he said.

“We’ve had two games that we should have won (against Derbyshire and Lancashire), and we have to take responsibility and make smarter choices.

“Those two games, we’ve not played anywhere near our best cricket and still got close, which is good in one sense.

“But we need to make sure that we learn quickly.”

Yorkshire’s inconsistency was highlighted when they lost to Lancashire last Thursday just 48 hours after beating Leicestershire.

Willey bowled superbly at Grace Road, returning 0-23 from four overs on a splendid batting pitch on which Yorkshire had scored 255-2, only for the White Rose to follow a fine 54-run win with a limp nine-run defeat to Lancashire at Headingley when they mustered only 161-9 in reply to 170-6.

“It was a great performance all round (at Leicester), so to come home and play like we did (against Lancashire) was disappointing,” he said.

“Twenty20 is a game of fine margins, and although five runs here and there doesn’t seem like much, it is.

“All we can do is keep trying to learn from the wins and the losses.

“If we do that and keep building as a group, we’ll be fine.”