Yorkshire CCC need to improve in ‘key moments’ urges Ottis Gibson

The county’s head coach said that he was pleased with performances overall but also cited room for improvement.

Yorkshire have won three, lost three and tied one of their first seven games in the 14-match group stage, leaving them on course to push for a top-four finish.

The “back seven”, as it were, starts with Friday’s game against Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston, where Yorkshire have been told they will have Harry Brook available after England announced an unchanged side for the second Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge (Brook is also expected to play in the County Championship game against Hampshire in Southampton that starts on Sunday).

Yorkshire have been up-and-down in T20 so far – albeit more up than down, perhaps. They won their opening fixture against Worcestershire at Headingley, tied with Lancashire at Old Trafford, lost to Leicestershire and Derbyshire at Headingley, then beat Durham and Nottinghamshire at Headingley before losing to Lancashire at Headingley on Wednesday.

In a format of exceedingly fine margins, the Roses tie and the four-run defeat in Wednesday’s return match encapsulated the perennial challenge that Yorkshire face – how to win key moments more often than not.

“We’re in the mix at the halfway stage,” said Gibson. “The two games against Lancashire could have gone either way, but we’ve played some good stuff as well.

“We chased over 200 (against Durham), so, as frustrated as we have been at times, we still have to look at the positive things. We’ve had a lot of different people making runs, and so on; we just need to tidy up a few little areas and be a little bit better with our execution with the ball at key moments of games.

“T20 is always going to hinge on a key moment here or there, and when those key moments come, we need to be better.”

Gibson’s minimum goal is a place at Finals Day at Edgbaston on July 16. Yorkshire are bidding to reach that stage for only the third time in this, the 20th season of the competition. They are one of five counties never to have won the T20 trophy along with Derbyshire, Durham, Glamorgan and Gloucestershire.

“Yes, for sure,” said Gibson as he pondered if Yorkshire can reach Finals Day. “The way we’ve played… we’ve had some close games, but we’re playing good cricket. Now Friday is another game and we go again. We lost our last one, but it’s not too serious and we’ll try to be better.”

Brook’s apparent availability is an obvious boost. At the same time, Gibson would love to see the 23-year-old get his chance at Test level.

“It would be good to have Harry back with us, obviously, because he’s been a run-machine all summer and to have him in our batting line-up again can only be a good thing,” said Gibson.

“But, ideally, I would like to see him play in the Test because I feel like he should be. It would be nice for him to be putting on the (England) top; that would be great. But, if not, then we can only benefit from that, of course.”

Gibson is targeting an improved display against a Birmingham side who have started well with five wins and two defeats.

Yorkshire will need to be tighter with the ball, having conceded 67 runs from the last four overs of the Lancashire innings, and more clinical with the bat, having scored only 27 runs in the last four overs of their run-chase to pull up just short.

“At 16 overs in both cases we were bossing the game,” added Gibson. “I thought we bowled our first 16 overs very well, but the last four overs changed the game and then, when we were batting, exactly the same.

“Ultimately, they executed their plans with the ball better than us at the back end and that’s the nature of T20 cricket, I think.

“But we also did a lot of good things. We scored 72 in the powerplay despite them bowling a maiden, for example; I don’t think that’s ever happened before, certainly not that I can remember. Tom (Kohler-Cadmore) played unbelievably (scoring 77 from 43 balls), so that was really good.

“I’m just frustrated because it was another game that we could have, should have, won, but we didn’t execute as well as we could have done with the ball. That’s our challenge going forward.”