By Gary Watton
September 30 2013

Yorkshire's 150th anniversary will pass without any silverware. However, although the trophy cabinet is a little too bare to bear, 2013 was a remarkable summer of mixed fortunes for the county's first XI. Performing a very good impersonation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Tykes were uncharacteristically woeful in both limited-overs competitions, but they redeemed themselves with an admirable challenge for English cricket's blue riband event, the County Championship.

Permit me to pour over the good, the bad, and the ugly. Firstly, the Twenty20 challenge was desperately disappointing, as the white rose wilted to bottom place in their group, having blossomed in 2012 when they reached the final. Alarmingly, only Sussex lost more matches in this year's contest, meaning that Yorkshire were effectively seventeenth out of eighteen in this summer's tournament. Jack Brooks narrowly takes my award as the best of a bad bunch, as Yorkshire's best competitor in the abortive Twenty20 challenge, as he finished with a fine bowling average of 14.54, ahead of Azeem Rafiq who achieved a commendable average of only nineteen (in addition to 23.50 with the bat). In the end, Yorkshire recorded two wins, one tie against Lancashire, and seven defeats (some of which were extremely heavy ones)

Our top batting averages for the Twenty20 of 2013:

Phil Jaques - 33 (a total of 99 runs from only three appearances)

Gary Ballance - 29.89

 

Meanwhile, our Yorkshire Bank40 efforts were scarcely any better. A final haul of three wins and nine defeats was totally unacceptable. Two victories against the hapless Unicorns and a Duckworth-Lewis assisted triumph against Middlesex were merely crumbs in this ill-fated campaign. Ultimately, Yorkshire finished sixth out of seven in their group, with only Scotland losing more matches in this year's competition. Gary Ballance was Yorkshire's man of the tournament, as he compiled a healthy average of 60.86. The only other major positive that can be extracted from this debacle was that the Tykes blooded many new recruits in various fixtures, a ploy which may not have paid immediate dividends, but it should be beneficial in the long run.

An analysis of our impressive County Championship quest will follow in Part Two.