Tag: reports

Yorkshire 334 for 8 (Brook 101, Lyth 52) lead Gloucestershire 227 by 107 runs

Brook averaged 38 in the Championship last season, making more of an impact in the shorter formats, but he remains ambitious to be an all-format cricketer and his hundred against Gloucestershire at the first time of asking, on a magical spring day, indicated that he is a player of growing resilience. “I regard Test cricket as the pinnacle,” he said.

Such an assertion will delight many, but maintaining a commitment to all formats is challenging, especially when – as Brook did this winter – it involves T20 stints in both Pakistan and Australia. He was strikingly self-critical when he offered up the thought that he had not taken full advantage of his England Lions opportunity in the winter, consumed by too many thoughts about the impending Big Bash. “Training and things,” he said, and left it there. Perhaps this innings began to put things right.

If Root’s resignation had not been viewed as a done deal, Brook suggested that in the Yorkshire dressing room there had been little surprise. “We sort of expected it,” he said. They will now hope that Root’s return to Championship cricket might happen sooner than later as he concentrates on getting his batting in order and, if it does, then Brook will benefit from batting alongside him.

Brook’s certainty ultimately dominated the second day, just as the compact figure of Gloucestershire’s opening batter, Marcus Harris, had dominated the first. He saved all his uncertain moments for when he was 99, his touch suddenly deserting him – what’s more against the bower who had met him with the most authority of all.

A single over from Ben Charlesworth saw Brook dropped low down at second slip by Tom Lace, an excellent delivery this; be dumbfounded by a thigh-high full toss; and then hop around after he was struck on the boot by a yorker. A back-foot steer through point secured his hundred, his second of the year, following a first T20 century for Lahore Qalanders in the Pakistan Super League. He fell in the next over, 101 from 164 balls, dead-batting a delivery from Josh Shaw on to his stumps.

Watching Brook was a serious business for many Yorkshire onlookers on the day of Root’s resignation. Broken by the inadequacies of others will be the view from the White Rose. “Morning chaps, how are you doing?” had been the cheery greeting from an unsuspecting Gloucestershire supporter in a Panama hat (not at all Northern apparel) as he collected a couple of foldaway chairs, and organised his partner and dog into approved position. Three pairs of eyes glanced up momentarily and remained determinedly silent. Coming late and chatting like that in the middle of an over, what’s the world coming to? The Man Who Talked Too Much got the message and walked off in search of a coffee.

Brook remains a bit of a fidget. There is always a pitch to tap, a glove to fiddle with, a shot to hone. On one occasion, he held up Zafar Gohar in his run-up to clear away an imagined speck of grass. When a stump was broken by a fielder’s throw, he hyperactively helped knock it back in. If you happen to miss a shot, the likelihood is that he will relive it for you seconds later, or at last relive a perfect version of it. But when the ball is bowled, that nervous energy increasingly comes together into certainty of thought and stroke.

His blemish on 99 apart, he offered Gloucestershire little hope, although he might have run himself out on 18 when he lackadaisically assumed he could collect a routine single square on the off-side only to find Harry Duke, at the non-striker’s end, wracked with uncertainty. Either might have been run out, neither was.

Yorkshire had chipped 37 off Gloucestershire’s 227 on the first evening, but at 135 for 4 the match was in the balance. Adam Lyth and Dawid Malan both promised to go big, but Lyth edged a tempting wide half-volley from Charlesworth to first slip and Malan played on against Ajeet Dale, who tucked him up from slightly back-of-a-length and forced a faint inside edge. The suspicion was that Malan has been vulnerable to this dismissal before, the portcullis not quite falling in time, but it would not be altogether surprising if data analysts were able to pore through hours of footage to prove otherwise.

From 135 for 4, with Brook’s innings yet to take shape, the match was in the balance, but Brook found good support from Duke and Dom Bess in stands of 91 and 71; if that continues, a wicketkeeper at No. 6 and a spin-bowling allrounder at No. 7 promises excellent balance. Duke found momentum with three boundaries in an over against Shaw, fortunate perhaps that Charlesworth flinched at backward point as he failed to pick up the flight of the ball.

As Brook assumed control, Gohar’s left-arm spin played an important holding role. He made an impact last season with 11 wickets against Durham and was the first signing made under the new head coach, Dale Benkenstein. Brook, having his first sight of him, played him circumspectly, and failed to take a boundary off him. There was a wicket, too, Duke, caught at the wicket trying to dab.

Many in the south-west feel that Gloucestershire can finish above Somerset this season, although the way their West Country rivals have started that assumption may not mean too much. Behind the game here, there is nevertheless a solidity about them that augers well and Gohar can make a vital contribution to that.

Yorkshire 37 for 0 trail Gloucestershire 227 (Harris 136, Fisher 4-19) by 190 runs

No word will have sounded sweeter all year to Yorkshire than the one where the umpire Ian Blackwell called “play” and their Championship season rumbled into life. A winter of condemnation as Azeem Rafiq’s allegations of racism attracted national attention gave way to what they hope will be a Spring of renewal. Beleaguered no more, or at least not as much.

“I have always dreamed of playing for England – that was at the top of my sheet,” he said. “Deep down I am quite an anxious person over things, particularly with the injuries I’ve been through. I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There are a lot of bowlers with a better record than me, but they have invested in me and I want to remember that.”

He has slightly extended his run after studying himself from side-on at the end of the season and deciding that he didn’t get enough momentum into the crease and was prone to muscle injuries as a result. He worked with Jon Lewis on an England Lions tour and feels that his pace has increased naturally, but the new approach – only 10 feet or so longer – has improved his accuracy because he is not straining so much. He had both of Yorkshire’s pre-lunch wickets to slip catches from around the wicket.

Darren Gough, Yorkshire’s MD of cricket, was present to oversee the start of what he hopes will be a grand awakening, an era where Yorkshire don’t just fulfil minimum social expectations on diversity, but set an example. “This is a one-in-a-generation chance to shape something and become a leading light for every county to follow,” he told BBC radio.

Gough does not do blandishments and it is very Yorkshire to respond to decades of failure when it comes to diversity by now wanting to do it better than anybody else. When he was not considering grand plans, he was mulling over small ones, such as more protection square on the off-side for the Pakistan quick on debut, Haris Rauf, who repeatedly offered width to Gloucestershire’s procession of left-handers; Harris’ first 10 boundaries against him all flew between third man and cover’s left hand.

Rauf, in only his fourth first-class match, bowled fast at times, took three wickets, saw catches dropped and disappeared at five an over. If Harry Duke had held a fast ‘keeper’s chance to his right when Harris was on 18, the story might have been different. Rauf also bowled the most eventful over of the day in which he saw Duke drop Ryan Higgins off successive deliveries (the second might have been a press box catch, to be fair), dismissed Higgins at short midwicket and then had Tom Lace lbw, first ball. Harris reached his century by square-driving him to the boards. When Zafar Gohar contributed the finest of cricketing dismissals – stumped for nought, charging down the pitch – Harris produced a gung-ho finale which ended when he skied a leg-side hit at Steve Patterson to the wicketkeeper.

A good day for the White Rose then, but there remains much off the field for Yorkshire’s players to block out. There has been talk this week that the ECB are considering charges of bringing the game into disrepute against around a dozen players, coaches and officials, although none (apart from Gary Ballance, who is absent on stress leave) are thought to be on the current staff which will help the healing process. Some critics still advocate docked points, a curious logic which, considering that a new regime is in place promising change, puts a thirst for punishment ahead of the need for progress.

Gough talks impressively about the development pathways Yorkshire are already improving in minority ethnic areas – and, as a working-class lad who knew as a teenager what it was like for money to be tight, he is wise enough to realise that affordability as well as cultural understanding is at the heart of Yorkshire’s challenge – but he has also been quick to offer the players emotional support.

“I was shellshocked myself when I took over,” he said. “I have never seen players as down. They had seen their friends sacked. Some of them had been at the club a long time. They were upset. I understand that. They still have questions they want answering. It is going to be difficult during the season. All those questions – are they going to drop us, are they going to dock points from us – they just have to focus on what they can. We are giving them an opportunity to play cricket. That’s what they have to do. Get out there and express their skills and play cricket for Yorkshire.”

The first day after Yorkshire’s latest revolution was a peaceful, united affair, a day that began with “a moment of reflection” on pretty much anything odious that people wanted to reflect upon. Travel back 38 years and the last Yorkshire revolution, over whether Geoffrey Boycott was sinner or saint (he was neither), had seen a new general committee virtually drink Taunton dry into the early hours. Resentful or vindicated men plotted in dark corners or stalked around the ground with folded arms. This time, life proceeded in a state of bliss.

When Rauf took a neat catch at long leg to dismiss Miles Hammond, hooking at Fisher, a man in a Wensleydale Creamery polo shirt leapt up and shouted “Good catch lad!” As the ECB-approved announcement on diversity rang around the ground, cries of encouragement for Rauf were sounding from the slips. Rafiq had an important message, but Yorkshire cricket is not evil incarnate. It is time for a sense of perspective and a new start – and Rafiq has said as much.

“I’ve always said we need to be role models on and off the field,” Fisher said. “This is a game for everyone. I like those announcements around the ground. That’s what I want to see more of.”

Returning to Bristol for the first time in a decade was a reminder that county grounds are steadily improving, as if in defiance of the professional game’s detractors, although the card-only payments in the Thatchers bar did cause a few grumbles. Bristol is not just the most environmentally-conscious, but also the most colour co-ordinated ground in the country. Its yellow and black is bright enough to send a nest of wasps into sexual ecstasy and the colour was appropriate as Yorkshire emerge, stings at the ready, from a waspish winter.