Yorkshire closing in on one-day trophy, says Martyn Moxon

GRAND DAY OUT: Yorkshire's players celebrates after beating Somerset in the final of the 2002 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy

Ahead of the new season that officially starts on Sunday when they take on Leeds-Bradford MCCU in a three-day game at Weetwood, the club have outlined their ambition to challenge in all three formats – the Championship, the 50-over and Twenty20.

Although it is only four years since Yorkshire won the second of successive County Championship titles, you have to go back to 2002 for the last time they lifted one-day silverware when they beat Somerset in the old Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy.

Since then, Yorkshire have been regular semi-finalists in 50-over cricket – as they were last summer, when they lost to Hampshire in the Royal London Cup, and Hampshire also beat them on their only appearance in a T20 final in 2012.

Martyn Moxon, the Yorkshire director of cricket, believes the club are now primed to gain reward for their white-ball efforts.

“I think the basis of our game is pretty sound now,” he said.

“I don’t think we’re far away from getting through to that final hurdle.

“Everyone knows their roles in one-day cricket now and we’re very close, I think, to achieving some real success.

Yorkshire CCC director of cricket, Martyn Moxon. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe.

“We’ve had some fantastic performances in the 50-over group stages in recent years without being able to get to that final stage.”

Yorkshire won five of their 50-over group games last summer, losing two with one abandonment.

After beating Essex at Chelmsford in the quarter-finals, they lost by 107 runs to Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl on the back of James Vince’s 171.

“Unfortunately, we came up against James Vince in brilliant form on that occasion,” said Moxon.

“We had to take our hats off to what was a magnificent innings.

“That was frustrating but I guess the most disappointing thing was that we didn’t progress out of the Twenty20 group stages when we were in a strong position to do so.

“Losing three of the last four games scuppered that opportunity of getting through to the knockout stages.”

Moxon continued: “There are still areas we need to be better at in T20. We want to improve our striking at the end of our batting (innings) and also our bowling at the death.”