Ottis Gibson: Young batters are sensing an opportunity

Yorkshire youngsters George Hill and Harry Brook have both made centuries already, while runs have been the order of the day in the early rounds of this year's County Championship

Ottis Gibson believes that the run-heavy start to the county season has, in part, been caused by the sense of opportunity felt by young batters around the country.

There have already been 53 centuries scored across both divisions of the LV= Insurance County Championship, with two of those coming from his charges.

George Hill, 21, made his first professional hundred in Yorkshire's draw with Northamptonshire, while Harry Brook – tipped by many for a Test debut in the not-too-distant future – reached three figures against Gloucestershire.

In the same game, James Bracey made 177 against Gibson's side, with Australia's Marcus Harris also making a debut ton. Dawid Malan has only failed to reach fifty once in four innings.

"If you are a batter in England at the moment, the way things have been for the last 12 to 18 months, you should sense an opportunity," Gibson told Yorkshire's official website.

"Whichever batter gets off to a really good start this summer could find themselves in one of those top three or four batting spots."

"Brooky's putting his hand up, others around the country are. I can only imagine that's a good thing for England going forwards."

^{Ottis Gibson took over as Yorkshire's head coach earlier this year (Michael Steele/Getty Images)}

Ben Compton, who will face Yorkshire this week when Kent visit Headingley, is the top tier's leading run-scorer, having made three hundreds in five innings – he has already faced 1,215 balls this season – while Bracey and Michael Burgess have made two centuries each. In Division Two, Brett D'Oliveira is yet to be dismissed through three innings.

"We've played two games and the ball has not swung a lot," added Gibson, England's former bowling coach. "The pitch at Northampton, the ball nipped around a bit first innings and then it became very flat. Even then, it was so cold on the last day that the ball didn't swing. That could have something to do with it.

"The pitch we played on in Bristol was a very good pitch, I thought. It still offered you assistance if you bent your back on the final day. And it definitely started to spin. At Northampton, it didn't even spin.

"But there has been some good batting. James Bracey scored a very good hundred against us and Brooky scored a very good hundred. County cricket gets a battering all the time in the media, every time England lose an Ashes series away. But I've always felt there's some very good batters around if the conditions are right."

The early-season figures are in accordance with recent history, where scores in April have been almost the same as in the height of summer; there have already been more than half the number of scores in excess of 400 in the opening three rounds of the season as there were in the entirety of the 10-round divisional phase in 2021.

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