Ballance aims to bounce back

GARY Ballance is confident Yorkshire can bounce back from their opening round Specsavers County Championship defeat against Hampshire when they travel to Edgbaston today.

Ballance’s debut as Yorkshire’s permanent captain ended in a threeday loss to a Hampshire side inspired by Kyle Abbott, who took seven second-innings wickets to set up a successful chase of 320.

Now, they travel to Edgbaston to face Warwickshire, who also started the season with a defeat against Surrey at the Oval.

And Ballance believes the White Rose are not too far away from getting it right.

“It was very disappointing to lose,” said the left-handed batsman. “But I thought we played some good cricket for a lot of the game.

“It was probably just the last four sessions where Hampshire were better than us.

“We played some good cricket, but to win games in this division you’ve got to play good cricket for the whole game. You can’t have a bad session or a bad hour.

“On the second day, I don’t think we should have been bowled out for 187. We could have put the game to bed with one big partnership.

“But that’s how it goes, and you’ve got to give credit to Hampshire. They batted very well.

“If we can play the good cricket we played against Hampshire for the whole four days, we’ll win more games than we lose.”

There were two main positives from the defeat for Yorkshire.

One was the performance of young seamer Ben Coad, who took six wickets in the first innings before adding two more in the second in his only his second Championship appearance.

He is expected to hold onto his place despite the likely return to fitness of David Willey and Matthew Fisher after recent injuries.

“He was outstanding,” said coach Andrew Gale. “He’s definitely put his name in the hat for the rest of the season and showed he’s well up to the task.”

The other positive was Ballance’s performance with the bat.

He scored 120 in the first innings and 55 in the second following 72 in the opening first-class win over Leeds/Bradford MCC Universities.

It was a far cry from just 24 runs in two early winter Tests against Bangladesh, contributing to him losing his England place.

“It was obviously nice in the first game as captain to go in there and score some important runs, but I was disappointed with the loss,” he said.

“I’ve felt good for a while, I just haven’t got the scores.

“I went into that series (Bangladesh) feeling confident, but that’s how it goes. You can feel good in the nets, but you don’t score runs in the nets.

“I’m just glad that I got some runs and can take that confidence forward.”

Yorkshire have an excellent recent Championship record at Edgbaston, winning three of their last four matches there, including two by an innings in 2013 and 2014.

“Warwickshire are a very good side. They’ve got some very good players, some current and ex-internationals,” added Ballance.

“We know it’s going to be tough, but we’ve played well against them in the last few years, so hopefully we can do that again.”