After two years without defeat, Essex encountered Rob Yates

NICK FRIEND: Still only 21 years of age, Yates speaks with a maturity beyond his years about a knock that helped to end Essex's 22-match unbeaten run in first-class cricket and the self-belief he has taken from his second professional century

Given the maturity with which Rob Yates talks, you might be forgiven for imagining a more experienced opening batsman on the other end of the phone, reflecting upon the most significant week yet in a short, burgeoning career.

So, it acts as a useful reminder of his youthfulness when he mentions the library at the University of Birmingham, where he is in the third year of his studies for an English language degree. There is a deadline coming up for the completion of an essay that focuses – rather fascinatingly – on a comparison between the chest-beating of gorillas in the wild and in captivity.

Needless to say, balancing that work while building a reputation for himself at the top of Warwickshire’s order is an intriguing challenge. But last week provided a timely confidence boost: Essex had gone 22 first-class fixtures without defeat until they stumbled into Yates, an immovable object, whose combination of obduracy and skilful batsmanship on a fourth-day surface ended that unbeaten run and pushed his county to the top of their group ahead of the reigning champions.

He finished unbeaten on 120 – a second professional hundred and his first in a winning cause, ending with the twin satisfaction of hitting the runs that sealed victory and striding off the field with his wicket still unbreached.

“That was something quite special,” he tells The Cricketer, a sentiment accentuated by his place as the youngest man in a team supposedly in the midst of a transitionary spell. Warwickshire’s dressing room might now be shorn of its legends of times gone by – Ian Bell, Jeetan Patel and Tim Ambrose have all retired, while Jim Troughton has been replaced as first team coach – but plenty of nous still remains. “There is a lot of knowledge to tap into at the moment,” he adds. Don’t underestimate the impact on Yates of Jonathan Trott, back at the county as a batting consultant, and of new head coach Mark Robinson, a serial winner in his time with Sussex and England Women.

They will have been full of pride, watching one of their own showing such wisdom and guts in an awkward, complex chase against an outfit so well versed in those scenarios: Warwickshire were set 255 for glory in two and a half sessions. “It was a pretty nice feeling to enjoy winning together as a team.”

^{Rob Yates made his second first-class century in Warwickshire's win over Essex}

Bell was another early supporter, taking Yates aside to discuss batting against left-arm spin after he was undone by Liam Dawson on his County Championship debut in 2019. Bell was injured at the time but still only too happy to help.

That work against spin didn’t end there; Yates spent much of last winter up against the Merlin bowling machine at Edgbaston’s indoor school and facing Alex Thomson, the club’s tall off-spinner currently on loan at Durham but not unlike Harmer in style and trajectory. “To see it all pay off was quite nice,” Yates admits.

Because, frankly, Yates is the kind of batsman upon whom Harmer has feasted during his remarkable spell in county cricket: a left-hander on a fourth-innings pitch with a target dangled in front of Warwickshire and a ten-wicket checklist for Essex to work through. As it happens, since his County Championship debut in 2017, this was Harmer’s longest wicketless spell – 0 for 88 in 32 overs – and just the second time he had failed to claim a scalp in the final innings. On the other occasion, he only bowled four balls.

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The moral of the story is that the quality of Yates’ knock shouldn’t be underplayed; there were bigger hundreds last week – by David Bedingham, Ricardo Vasconcelos, Chris Cooke, Rob Keogh, Tom Alsop and Danny Lamb – and centuries of greater narrative and symbolic significance by Haseeb Hameed.

But given the strength of his opposition and the aura of a team that simply refuses to lose, Yates’ effort should not get lost in the noise elsewhere. In his only previous encounter with Essex, Harmer dismissed him twice: lbw in the first innings and caught at slip in a forlorn run chase.

He is keen to credit Hanuma Vihari, then, with guiding him through his vigil this time around and nullifying The Harmer Factor: the Indian batsman made 52 and Sam Hain 60. In a sense, it sounds like the ideal performance from an overseas player and mentor; for Vihari, a veteran now of 12 Tests, this is a first taste of county cricket. But he has international fifties against England at the Oval and New Zealand at Christchurch, not to mention a hundred in the Caribbean, so his game against Essex seamers Sam Cook, Jamie Porter and Peter Siddle was unsurprisingly sound.

^{Yates ensured Simon Harmer went wicketless in the fourth innings of a County Championship game for only the second time in four years}

And as a run machine in India’s Ranji Trophy, where he averages 62.17 for Andhra, he has faced plenty of spin before, so there was a serenity in his method against Harmer that few others have shown over the last four years, perhaps enabled by a blissful ignorance of the South African’s hold over county batsmen.

“It was good for him not to have that baggage,” says Yates. “People talk about Simon Harmer and he’s obviously a very good bowler for a reason and his record is his record for a reason. So, Vihari was very calming out there, talking me through his method and game plans. He was quite a calming influence.

“He was good to watch as well: he had a lot of time and he judged the ball pretty well. I remember bowling at him in the nets and seeing the quickness of his feet and the timing he had when he hit the ball. It’s been good having him around.”

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For Yates, this feels like a coming-of-age moment. He remains a 21-year-old from Solihull just 20 games into his first-class career, arriving in a fortnight’s time at the second anniversary of his debut, keen simultaneously to lose the tag of a red-ball specialist that has built up in some quarters. “That’s just the way the cards have fallen,” he insists. “I’ve never pigeonholed myself as a red-ball player. I just play cricket – all three formats, it’s part of the job.” He was given a run in the T20 side towards the end of last year, made 66 in his only List A match to date and hit Harmer over long-on on Sunday for the first six of his first-class career.

He is honest enough, though, to admit that self-doubt has lingered in the past; his maiden professional century came in his tenth appearance in August 2019 against a Somerset side fighting for the title. He followed 141 on the first day with a second innings fifty but still ended up on the losing side.

^{The 21-year-old is simultaneously studying for an English language degree from the University of Birmingham}

The effect of the coronavirus pandemic – and the shortened 2020 campaign – meant that an immediate chance to properly build on his breakthrough ton was delayed. And while the maiden hundred was a monkey off his back, this second one – after 46 runs in four innings at the start of this season – is hard evidence for the comfort of his own mind that he will forever be more than a one-hit wonder.

“I have thought about getting the second one a lot,” he reflects, “but now I’m thinking about getting the third one and then about getting the fourth. So on and so on.

“They were pretty different contexts: I was in pretty decent form going into the Somerset one. Whereas this one had a bit more on it: there to win a game, the hundred was an afterthought really.”

Afterthought or not, it has turned any lingering uncertainty into increased self-belief.

“It does,” he explains. “Taking responsibility, I don’t want to just be a youngster in the side. I want to be part of the side and I feel like that adds to that self-belief that I’m ready.

“Age is just a number really. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough. I want to be able to contribute in such a way that you would expect of anyone in the team.”

And after a match-winning century against the nation’s most dominant team, he might just have his wish. Other knocks across the country might have gained more traction in recent days, but it’s hard to argue that any were better than this.

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