By JMB
July 10 2006

Players have come and gone and experienced success elsewhere. There's no real surprise. The critical mutterings of the Yorkshire faithful do little to enhance a players prospects. A couple of seasons ago, shortly after Richard Blakey had hung up his gloves for the first time, I was sat in the members pavilion watching the new keeper, Simon Guy, in action. All around me men who looked like they'd never done a days exercise in their lives muttered 'he's not as good as Blakey', 'you're rubbish Guy', 'he couldn't catch a cold'.

Now putting to one side the issue of whether Simon Guy has a future behind the sticks at Headingley you have to agree there must be better ways to groom and motivate a young player. Put yourself in his shoes - he looks around the dressing room and sees seasoned pros, he knows that he is a couple of games at best away from relegation back to the second team, but he has the chance if he does well of staking a claim for his future career. That's pressure enough without the wisecracks from over the boundary edge.

I firmly believe that this is one of the major reasons why Yorkshire players come and go like the English weather, and we've lost some good ones. You could fill a test team with the young hopefulls that have got away.

The problem is that many of these seasoned moaners were brought up on Yorkshire cricket when the side was filled with names that are now legendary. There used to be a saying 'a strong Yorkshire side meant a good England team' and so it was for the years through the later 1950's and 60's when the club notched up seven County Championship titles in ten years. When that history is still remembered and the memories of players get better with age, what chance do the new players have to shine?

That is why the Twenty20 Cup (and other one day tournaments) provides the new crop a chance to let their hair down - the witless mutterings from fans of yesteryear unheard amongst the din of music and Mexican waves.

This new style cricket, the only time Headingley is full other than for international games, looks to the future and not to the past. The Trueman's, Boycott's, Close's et al do not lurk around every dressing room door saying 'this is how we did it in my day.' In fact the frequently hear 'things where better then' grumble cannot be heard at all because, quite simply, that was then and this is now. In those days you didn't do Twenty20 at all.

Twenty20 is now firmly on the fixture list, attracting new and vibrant crowds, and for a short while each June/July shoving the Yorkshire doom mongers out of ear shot and firmly beyond the eyeline of a Yorkshire team desperate to do well.