Who are the key players? How did they do last year? Where are they strong? Where might they be weak? Key questions answered ahead of the new T20 Blast campaign
Coach: Andrew Gale
Captain: Steven Patterson
Last season: Fifth, North Group
How did they do last year?
Yorkshire once again failed to progress to the knockout stages, finishing fifth in the North Group.
The Vikings emerged from their opening five matches with two convincing wins – Derbyshire and Durham – and one defeat (Nottinghamshire), the Yorkshire weather conspiring to disrupt their white-ball ambitions with two washed out matches.
However, they couldn’t blame the weather in the second half of the season, losing four matches in a row to seal their fate with one fixture remaining. Andrew Gale’s side won their final match – a six-wicket win against Derbyshire – but it was too little, too late.
Yorkshire did suffer an unfortunate blow ahead of their penultimate match of the group stage, losing David Willey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Matthew Fisher and Josh Poysden to positive Covid tests. However, having won just two of their six playable matches prior to the decimation of their squad, it cannot excuse another season of disappointing white-ball play.
David Willey is an important cog in the Yorkshire machine
Who are their key players?
Adam Lyth is criminally overlooked as a white-ball player. The 34-year-old, ranked 125th on the T20 Player Index, has scored 1,088 runs since the start of the 2018 Blast, including nine half-centuries, and posted a T20 strike rate in excess of 150 in each of his past five seasons. He’s handy with the ball too, picking up three wickets from 19 overs and bowling with an economy of 6.57 in 2020.
Fellow big-hitter Kohler-Cadmore is also a delight and will be hoping to replicate his 2019 form with the bat – 435 runs in 10 appearances – after his involvement in England’s 55-man bubble limited his playing opportunities for Yorkshire last year.
With the ball, overseas signing Lockie Ferguson catches the eye. The 29-year-old quick has 63 T20 wickets in 61 appearances and a career economy of 7.56. He previously represented Derbyshire in the 2018 Blast, taking 16 wickets and conceding just 6.64 runs per over, and is a shrewd purchase after Yorkshire’s struggles with the ball last season.
Then, there’s Yorkshire’s England contingent: Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan, Willey, and Adil Rashid. How much of the competition they are available for is to be confirmed but having any one of the five available is a huge boost.
What are their biggest strengths?
Batting is very much Yorkshire’s forte. At the top of the order, they are spoiled for choice with the likes of Lyth, Kohler-Cadmore, Root, Malan, intermittently Bairstow and, returning after missing last season, Gary Ballance.
Lower down the teamsheet, they can look to Harry Brook, Willey and, to a lesser extent, Jordan Thompson, to extend their batting depth, with all three players offering strike rates around the 140 mark.
However, Yorkshire’s ace in the pack could be the availability of Joe Root in between England’s Test series against New Zealand, due to finish on June 14, and their ODI series against Sri Lanka, starting June 28.
England’s Test captain scored 278 runs, including four fifties, for the Vikings in 2020 and, having not been selected for a T20I since May 2019, could have an empty two weeks in his diary come mid-June.
Where might they have a weakness?
As with several of the bigger counties, the availability of their England internationals could prevent Yorkshire from fielding their best XI and leave them once again struggling for squad consistency. They should be ok for the first four or five rounds but could lose as many as half a dozen players to England’s white-ball matches against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Bowling is also an area of concern. Yorkshire failed to defend scores of 167, 188 and 190 last season while their leading wicket-takers Fisher and Thompson picked up just eight apiece. The signing of Ferguson is a shrewd one but there’s a lot of pressure on the New Zealander to carry the attack.
What are their chances of reaching Finals Day?
It all depends on the availability of Root and co. If Yorkshire can go hard in the first half of the tournament, they may have enough points in the bank to survive the departure of the England cohort. And, if they make it to the quarter-finals, England’s non-Test players will be back in contention for the business end of the tournament.
Possible XI: Jonny Bairstow, Adam Lyth, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Harry Brook, David Willey, Jordan Thompson, Adil Rashid, Duanne Olivier, Lockie Ferguson
Fixtures: June 10 – Birmingham Bears (h), June 11 – Durham (a), June 15 – Leicestershire (h), June 16 – Worcestershire (a), June 18 – Durham (h), June 20 – Derbyshire (h), June 23 – Worcestershire (h), June 25 – Leicestershire (a), June 26 – Northamptonshire (h), June 30 – Birmingham Bears (a), July 2 – Lancashire (h), July 9 – Nottinghamshire (a), July 17 – Lancashire (a), July 18 – Derbyshire (a)
Welcome to www.thecricketer.com - the online home of the world’s oldest cricket magazine. Breaking news, interviews, opinion and cricket goodness from every corner of our beautiful sport, from village green to national arena.