Yorkshire coach Gale responds to Prior's ambition comments

Speaking on BBC Five Live, Prior questioned the desire of county pros with a suggestion that some lacked the ambition to play at international level for England

^{Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale has had his say on the county pro ambition debate}

Andrew Gale has responded to Matt Prior’s comments that “there are too many players floating around in county cricket with very little ambition”.

Speaking on BBC Five Live, Prior questioned the desire of county pros with a suggestion that some lacked the ambition to play at international level for England.

"The worry for me is there's a lot of cricketers I think at the moment playing county cricket who are not looking or ambitious enough to think, 'Right, hang on a minute, I want to play cricket for England. I want to play and win a series in Australia'" he said.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Yorkshire coach Gale has gone into bat for his fellow county professionals.

"It frustrates me because I think county cricket is a great product,” said Gale. I’m a big believer in it. We’re producing good players. The format is good, and it disappoints me whenever England struggle in Australia that everyone turns on county cricket and blames county cricket for it.

"I believe that we had the players certainly to compete with Australia and not be involved in a drubbing, and it all comes down to players playing better under pressure. Australia did that, and whenever they got a slight advantage, they hammered it home.

^{Matt Prior questioned the ambition of county cricketers}

"England aren’t the only ones to struggle in Australia, just as a lot of teams struggle when they come over here. Teams go to India and they struggle, and it riles me that county cricket gets the blame for England’s poor form.

"I’ve nothing whatsoever against Matt Prior. He’s got a voice just as everyone else has. He’s not the only one who’s said what he’s said, but when you question people’s ambition in county cricket, I can only speak for my players and say that my lads, day-in, day-out, are pushing the boundaries as much as they can. That doesn’t guarantee success by any means, but I know that my players are determined and ambitious.

"I’ve got players who are 34/35 years of age whose ambition has passed in terms of playing for their country, but they still turn up and train and give 100 per cent every day to what Yorkshire are trying to achieve because they want to be successful for Yorkshire.

"At the other end of the scale, I’ve got people who, in the long scheme of things, have ambitions to play for their country, but their first ambition is to try to break into the Yorkshire team and to take it from there. I don’t see a lot of players in county cricket doing it just to put food on the table.

“I think most of them have got ambitions to either play for their country, play for their county, be successful for themselves and win trophies for their county."