Completely Selfish

By Gary Watton
August 28 2014

Congratulations to the Jets of Durham for reaching the last four of the Royal London One-Day Cup on the back of a thoroughly deserved triumph against the hyped but under-performing Yorkshire. Paul Collingwood bowled particularly well to stifle the toothless Vikings while his captain Mark Stoneman led from the front with a superb ton. Unfortunately the same yet again cannot be said for the liability that is Andrew Gale.

While Gale clearly has his merits as a captain, and yes he did win a useful toss, he has become to Yorkshire what Mike Brearley once was to England: a very good captain but someone whose batting is not of a sufficient standard to merit his place in a team for whom competition for places is enormous. Facts rarely lie and over this summer Gale has been a flop in both one-day tournaments, yet he still earns an undeserved selection ahead of the infinitely more deserving Jack Leaning for a high profile quarter final. If Gale's extra experience was intended to stand his team in good stead, it plainly didn't. For the second successive one-day match, a good foundation to our innings was thwarted when Gale lost his wicket to a first-ball duck egg. How the hell he should be chosen ahead of Leaning beggars belief. While Jack had already recorded a fifty and an unbeaten century in the group stages, gormless Gale had no such landmarks to speak of. His puny average was considerably less than Leaning's, and still the selfish swine had to be accommodated at number six in the batting line-up. If I was Jack Leaning, I would be seeking another county that rewards its good players and doesn't drop in-form players in order to placate the misfiring captain. Quite frankly, just as England has split its captaincy in recent years, so Yorkshire needs to do likewise. Going forward next year, the county needs a new one-day captain as Mr Gale may not be good enough to command a place in the limited overs matches which seem to reveal him to be limited.

Not that Gale is entirely responsible for the disappointing defeat against Durham. Kane Williamson has also failed once too often in one-day matches. Is he the best overseas player that Yorkshire can recruit for limited-overs skirmishes? Really? Yes Bairstow and Rashid also had bad days at the office when they came to bat, but it is the miserable form of Gale and Williamson plus the scandalous exclusion of Leaning which ruined Yorkshire's chances.

After all, the Tykes had succeeded in bowling the Jets out, and needing less than five runs per over, a successful run chase should have been well within reach. Lyth again didn't quite kick on after a good start while Lees was on the verge of a great innings. Instead it was the returning Gary Ballance who looked set to guide his team to victory, before he too succumbed to a very good Durham attack. Ballance's efforts were akin to Athey in the 1987 World Cup final or a Trott one-day international display. The gradual accumulation of runs looks clever if a victory is achieved but the failure to accelerate the scoring looks far from clever when the team falls short.

The result was tough on Pyrah, whose pyrotechnics almost produced a happy ending had he not run out of batting partners. Meanwhile his county can now focus on the County Championship over the next four weeks. Gale needs to find a big score against Lancashire or else he could be in line for relegation when Ballance and Root return for the remaining two fixtures.

YORKSHIRE versus Durham; at Leeds; Thursday 28th August. YORKSHIRE won the toss.

Durham: 237 off 48.4 overs (Stoneman 102; Pyrah 4-51, Patterson 3-39)

YORKSHIRE: 206 off 48.1 overs (Ballance 61; Rushworth 3-23)

Durham won by 31 runs.