Gale keeps the faith that Tykes can clean it up!
IF you listened very carefully at Leeds on Saturday afternoon, you could hear the gentle sound of machinery falling into place.
And if you struggled to understand the significance of the noise, a few of the Headingley spectators might have helped you out. They would have told you it was Yorkshire’s cricketers moving through their Championship gears.
No, it is nothing like done yet and some would argue that it is not even probable. Yorkshire still trail Middlesex by 14 points, albeit with a game in hand. But the next two fixtures for Andrew Gale’s team are at Old Trafford, against a Lancashire side who haven’t won a Division One match since May, and at home to Nottinghamshire, who haven’t won since the first game of the season.
What’s more, the hard cricketing evidence from their 48-run victory against Warwickshire emboldened the Yorkshire skipper that his team were getting somewhere near the form they will need if they are to clinch a hat-trick of titles.
True,Yorkshire’s top six may not be clicking with the bat but their first-innings 257 on a testing Leeds pitch was still the highest total of the game, and it was achieved thanks to a last-wicket stand of 53 between Steve Patterson and Ryan Sidebottom.
“The winning margin in that game was almost the same as that partnership Ryan and Patto put together in the first innings,” said Gale. “While other teams have batted better than us in the last 18 months someone always stands up and makes a contribution. That’s the sign of a good side I guess.”
But if Yorkshire are still not yet near their most fluent with the bat, the White Rose bowlers are looking in ominously fine fettle.
Ryan Sidebottom and Jack Brooks’ return from injury enabled Gale to rest both David Willey and Liam Plunkett for the Warwickshire game, and the ability of Adil Rashid – “the hoover” as they call him in the dressing room – to clean up the tail gives Gale an attack with which he is plainly satisfied.
“Ryan’s return is almost like having a new signing,” said Gale. “At the start of the season I thought my problem would be fitting seven seamers into four places, but at times I’ve been scratching around trying to find four fit bowlers. “Having Rash in the team makes a huge difference because he’s so ruthless. There’s not many tailenders around that can pick his googly, so we bring the hoover on.” But Rashid would probably not have had the opportunity to take those four late wickets had Jack Leaning not produced a brilliant one-handed catch to remove Tim Ambrose, a snare which Gale acknowledged had changed a game he thought was slipping away from his side. That dismissal, followed quickly by that of Jonathan Trott, enabled Yorkshire to complete their third win of the season and it set them up for the remaining half-dozen fourday games that will define their summer. “One of our things this year is that we haven’t been ruthless enough, but we were pretty ruthless in this game,” said Gale. “They say if you perform well at the business end, you’ll get your rewards. There’s six games left and it’s all to play for. It could be one of the best Championships we’ve seen for a long time.”