Yorkshire v Surrey: Pivotal week as Yorkshire eye silverware

The club take on Surrey in the Championship at Scarborough from today in a match that marks the beginning of the second half of their four-day campaign.

Yorkshire, in fifth position, go into the game 47 points behind the leaders after one win, five draws and one defeat.

They have a match in hand on a Surrey side who have won four and drawn four and whom they beat by one run in a T20 quarter-final at the Oval last Wednesday.

That earned Yorkshire a visit to Finals Day for only the third time which will be held at Edgbaston on Saturday.

Yorkshire face Lancashire in the first semi-final from 11am with the winner taking on Hampshire or Somerset who meet in the second semi-final from 2.30pm. The final begins at 6.45pm.

The first priority, though, is trying to make up ground in the Championship race with Yorkshire still harbouring hopes of their first title since 2015.

After an initial block of six Championship games was followed by an outlier of one match during the T20 group stages, which brought a two-wicket defeat against Hampshire in Southampton, Yorkshire now have three Championship matches in as many weeks, with a trip to meet Somerset in Taunton from July 19 followed by another game at Scarborough against Hampshire from July 25.

There then follows a break of almost six weeks before Yorkshire conclude their Championship programme with four back-to-back games against Lancashire at Old Trafford, Essex at Headingley, Surrey at the Oval and Gloucestershire at Headingley. The month of August is effectively given over to the 50-over Cup and The Hundred.

Although Surrey lead Division One by 16 points from Hampshire, no one has pulled away in the Championship race, not helped by a profusion of flat pitches and early-season problems with the balls going soft and out of shape.

It helps to explain why Yorkshire remain in the hunt despite one win in seven, that win coming in their opening match of the season against Gloucestershire in Bristol.

The importance of this game, then, and this block of three before the 50-over Cup starts, is obvious. Two fixtures at Scarborough could play into Yorkshire’s hands; they have won their last three Championship matches at North Marine Road.

Somerset were disposed of inside two days last September, while the two fixtures in 2019 prior to the coronavirus outbreak which took cricket away from the venue in 2020 and also deprived it of last summer’s Championship match against Lancashire, which was moved to Headingley due to Covid restrictions on crowd numbers, saw Nottinghamshire beaten by 143 runs and this week’s opponents beaten by 123 runs.

The pitch is usually pretty quick with plenty of carry, hence why Yorkshire have signed Shannon Gabriel, the West Indies fast bowler, for this block of three.

Gabriel, who could potentially return for the run-in as well, has been playing first-class cricket of late with Trinidad & Tobago so is not coming into it cold.

The 34-year-old has given fine service to the West Indies during the course of a career which has brought him 161 wickets in 56 Tests, along with 36 wickets in white-ball internationals.

Gabriel’s recruitment speaks volumes for Yorkshire’s bowling resources, or rather lack of them. Matty Fisher, Ben Coad and Dominic Leech remain notable absentees which in part explains why Yorkshire have struggled to kill off sides in earlier rounds, not helped by an unaccountable number of dropped catches.

Indeed, someone posted on Twitter over the weekend a team of players who Yorkshire have not named in their 13-man squad for the Surrey match which highlights the impact caused mostly by injuries and international call-ups.

The team read: Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Dawid Malan, Gary Ballance, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jonny Bairstow, David Willey, Matty Fisher, Adil Rashid, Ben Coad and Dominic Leech. Nor does that XI include Harry Duke, the wicketkeeper who has been replaced for this game by Jonny Tattersall.

Perhaps the most notable absentee from the squad named by Yorkshire is Ballance, who scored 61 and 103 for the seconds against Essex last week – his first appearance since the events of the winter.

Ballance will only return when he and the club feel that he is ready and events could change quickly in that regard.

Squad: Bess, Cliff, Fraine, Gabriel, Hill, Luxton, Lyth, Patterson (captain), Revis, Tattersall, Thompson, Waite, Wharton.