Yorkshire CCC hoping Jonny Bairstow can help end their long winless run

How they need one having been installed as the runaway favourites to win the Second Division – always a dangerous tag to be handed by the bookmakers – only to start their season with a defeat, an abandonment and a draw to sit second-bottom of the fledgling table.

Yorkshire’s run of 15 matches without a Championship victory is the joint third-worst sequence in their history, matching the run of 1971. For the record, the second-worst is 16 in 1989-90, and the worst 20 in 2008-09.

Bairstow’s last Championship outing was memorable; he was part of arguably the greatest hat-trick in the game’s history when Lancashire’s Jordan Clark dismissed Joe Root, Kane Williamson and then Bairstow amid disbelieving scenes at Old Trafford.

Bairstow recovered to top-score with 82 in the second innings, a key contribution that helped Yorkshire win by 118 runs.

Since then, Bairstow, 33, has made two first-class appearances for Yorkshire – both in 2020 in the Bob Willis Trophy, the tournament which replaced the Championship in that Covid-hit year.

He returned to competitive action last week for the Yorkshire second team, scoring 97 and 57 against Nottinghamshire at Headingley, and taking a couple of catches behind the stumps.

While Bairstow aims to prove his form and fitness ahead of the Ashes, Marnus Labuschagne will be aiming to build on a solid start to the season for Glamorgan.

The 28-year-old right-hander, who averages 57 in Test cricket, struck 64 in last week’s draw against Leicestershire at Grace Road, having captured career-best figures of 4-81 bowling off-spin (he usually bowls leg-spin) on his first appearance of the campaign against Durham at Cardiff.

Glamorgan have another useful Australian in their ranks in the form of Michael Neser, the 33-year-old pace bowling all-rounder, who must have half-an-eye on the Ashes himself.

Although not chosen in the tourists’ squad, Neser is on hand, as it were, should Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood or Scott Boland need to be replaced. Neser has made two Test appearances, debuting in the Adelaide Test of the last Ashes series.

Although Joe Root is unavailable, kicking his heels at the Indian Premier League, his brother, Billy, is set to play for Glamorgan.

“Root the Younger” hit an unbeaten 117 in the opening match against Gloucestershire at Cardiff.

Yorkshire (from): Bairstow, Bean, Bess, Coad, Edwards, Fisher, Hill, Lyth, Malan, Revis, Shakeel, Tattersall, Thompson, Wharton.