Andrew Gale admitted his disappointment as Yorkshire were denied a final day victory at Hampshire in the LV= Insurance County Championship, but said: “We’ve thrown everything at that.”
Hampshire, chasing a nominal 393 target, started day four at the Ageas Bowl on 26-2 and finished on 177-9.
Last pair Kyle Abbott and Brad Wheal batted out 7.4 overs to seal the draw, claiming 11 points to Yorkshire’s 12.
That included the last six of them against the double spin of Dom Bess and Adam Lyth in fading light having been ordered to withdraw pace from the attack on safety grounds by umpires James Middlebrook and Nigel Llong.
Coach Gale said: “I think if we didn’t lose the light at the back end, we’d have won the game because Jordan Thompson looked like getting Wheal out any ball there.
“The lads are gutted because I’d probably say it’s our best performance of the season all round. We dominated the game.
“To only come out with a point extra than them, we’re disappointed.
“I don’t think we could have done anything more today.
“We tried our best, we tried all different plans. But Hampshire showed a lot of character and the pitch lost a lot of pace.
“It didn’t spin or go up and down as much as we thought it would.
“I don’t think we could have done much more – I praise the lads’ efforts.”
With three matches to play, Yorkshire are 16.5 points behind Division One leaders Warwickshire in the race to be county champions. Their next game is against Somerset at Scarborough on Sunday.
“I always thought we’d need to win three out of the last four games (to have a chance of winning the Championship),” said Gale.
“Had we won that with two home games to come, you are thinking, ‘Hmmm’.
“We’re not down and out by any means. Win the next two games and you go to Trent Bridge for the last match and who knows what could happen.
“If we play in that manner, we’ll win games.
“We were very disciplined. We’ve talked a lot about our batting this year, but I thought we batted beautifully and applied ourselves. We probably batted in the toughest of conditions on day one.”
David Willey will be fit to face Somerset if selected having recovered from illness which ruled him out of this game.
