No title talk for Andrew Gale as Yorkshire CCC defeat Surrey at Scarborough

The first team coach watched his men beat Surrey by 123 runs at Scarborough, a result that lifted them to third in the table.

In a dramatic finish, Yorkshire captured the last wicket with just 10 balls of the match remaining, sparking jubilant celebrations at North Marine Road.

Yorkshire are 36 points behind leaders Somerset and 21 behind second-placed Essex, but Gale, who has consistently played down suggestions that his side can challenge, insists that he is simply happy with their continuing progress.

“We’ve not even spoken about it (the title),” said Gale, whose side face Essex at Chelmsford on Sunday before hosting Somerset at Headingley the following week.

“We said from the start of the year that we’re probably not a Championship-winning team, and we’re just going about our business quietly.

“Obviously, Somerset are playing some unbelievable cricket, Essex are on a good run, but we go there (to Essex) next week full of confidence, we’re playing good cricket, and we’ll just see where it takes us. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and, if we’ve got an outside sniff with two or three games left, then brilliant, but we’re just going to keep going about our business game by game.”

Yorkshire’s victory – their third in eight Championship games this season – ended a dismal sequence at Scarborough.

They had lost their four previous Championship matches there and five of the last six.

“As a player, I enjoyed some really good times at Scarborough; I loved it and scored a lot of runs there,” said Gale.

“But, as a coach, it’s brought a lot of mixed emotions, but I think we prepared really well for this game, coming to Scarborough to practice the week before and the lads got their deserved rewards.

“The match was a great advert for county cricket, we had four days of good weather, good crowds, a great pitch and it went down to the last couple of overs, with both teams going toe-to-toe all the way.”