Roses rivals not yet in full bloom
Paul Edwards draws the positives after Yorkshire and Lancashire play out a rather tame stalemate
ARoses match which neither side came near to winning, but which produced four centurions and plenty of fine cricket left both sides keenly looking forward to next week’s return game at Headingley.
Andrew Gale was left regretting his team’s inability to take their chances – especially the tough one offered by Shivnarine Chanderpaul when Lancashire’s barnacle had made only 44 – but the Yorkshire coach was encouraged by his players’ overall performance, despite their having won only one of their four Division One games this season.
“We’ve spoken about taking our half chances,” he said. “It’s something we haven’t always done this year. We dropped Shiv in this game and players like that on pitches like that make you pay.You just have to be a little bit more ruthless and concentrate harder.
“The match was a bit attritional, but I thought we played some good cricket and I was really happy with the way we went. We felt we had the better of the cricket, but Lancashire stuck at it well and fought their way back into the game.
“It’s a mini series. We’ve got them again in a week’s time when there will be a bit more in the wicket and it should be a good game of cricket.”
Lancashire skipper, Steven Croft, agreed with many of Gale’s judgements but was also pleased that his county’s winter signings had performed so well in a game marred by the groin injury sustained by Jimmy Anderson.
“To come out with one point more than them is slightly pleasing, but the loss of Jimmy made things a lot harder for us,” he said. “But all in all it was a good game played by two good sides although it was always going to be tough to get a result on that wicket once we had lost 50 overs to rain.
“There was a bit in it on that first day but we felt the pitch might spin a bit more. I thought we got ourselves into a good position but just couldn’t capitalise. As it was, Shiv played a brilliant innings as did Ryan McLaren down the order.