Andrew Gale: Why pick our lads for England if they’re going to carry the drinks?

Adil Rashid and Adam Lyth are two guys who I think should have played. It is almost disrespectful to the County Championship in some ways that you tell guys to go and get runs and wickets and they do exactly that over a number of years and then they pick a spinner who couldn’t get in a second division side last year.

No disrespect to James Tredwell, but if they don’t look at Rash now, they are never going to have the confidence to look at him.

For me, it would have also been a perfect opportunity to give Lythy a decent run and give him some decent experience going into the Ashes.

I just hope he gets some experience before the Ashes come around because the last thing the lad needs is to be thrown in the mix for an Ashes series without any experience.

Playing the West Indies and New Zealand would have been a good run-in.

I just hope they do get some cricket over there. The last thing we want is for them to miss five weeks worth of cricket and then try and hit their straps again with us. It is like having pre-season again.

Having not played first-team cricket for the past few weeks for Yorkshire, I have been a bit of a caged animal.

Seeing the lads win the first County Championship game at Worcester was fantastic and hopefully I will be a part of that again in the game at Trent Bridge, which starts tomorrow.

Obviously, going back gives me mixed feelings after missing the title-winning game there last season. But it’s a ground where I have always had a good record and I have done really well against Notts and I look forward to going back there.

What happened there last year is all in the past now and I have fond memories of that day there when we lifted the Championship there. Having our families and office staff in the dressing room celebrating a Championship win is a day I will never forget.

There’s no bitter memories there. I look forward to going back and hopefully repeating last year’s win.

I remember a few years back getting 149 there and they are one of the teams, luckily, I have done well against. You do well against some teams and not so well against others.

After missing last week’s round and the game in Abu Dhabi, it was important I got some time at the crease for the seconds and I had 30 or 40 overs in the second innings so it was nice to get some rhythm to hopefully hit my straps tomorrow.

The win at Worcester was certainly one of Yorkshire’s best wins for me.

To win in the fashion we did and as easily with the players we have out including six England players, myself and then Ryan Sidebottom missing the whole second innings sent a strong message to the rest of the country. We said the England lads being away would create opportunities for young lads coming in and spoke of senior players having to step up and that is exactly what happened.

It will give the lads a lot of confidence going forward.

Leesy with the bat and Jack Brooks taking his wickets both stepped up.

So did Tim Bresnan, who was probably behind the eight-ball a bit, but came in and scored some runs and chipped in with wickets.

Then, Steve Patterson got career-best figures of 5-11 in the second innings. The senior lads got the job done.

In terms of the younger lads, Will Rhodes came in and smacked 40-odd not out in the second innings and it was good to see and I am sure they are all loving life at the minute.

Alex Lees led the side and was terrific. When I have been out of the side, I have been keen on giving opportunities to others to get leadership experience.

Joe Root has done it, along with Azeem Rafiq and now Leesy.

His performance was good and the captaincy didn’t affect his game.

I am not quite ready to hang my boots up yet, but I am not going to be around forever.

I think the club is bigger than one person and giving guys leadership experience is vital.

This week will have given Leesy loads of confidence going forward as he did well.