Ottis Gibson believes Yorkshire’s young players must capitalise on the key moments in matches as they bid to progress their own games and in turn the county’s cause.
Coach Gibson has been reflecting on an inconsistent Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign, which was wrapped up earlier this week with four wins and four losses in a win one, lose one sequence all the way through Group B.
The Vikings missed out on knockout qualification.
But the Bajan refused to be too downbeat.
“In sport, it’s about key moments,” he said.
“It’s about learning and understanding when those key moments are and making good decisions.
“Sometimes our decision making let us down in those key moments, and that’s a learning for everybody.”
“We’re playing with a lot of inexperience in our team, coming up against some good teams with a lot of experience. That Warwickshire team we beat the other day at Rugby is very experienced, but we played well against them.
“Using the tournament as a development competition means we are going to have good days and bad days, and we have to stay really calm and positive.
“We have to reinforce the positives all the time to the young players.
“That’s not to say that you’re not trying to learn from your mistakes, but in reinforcing the positives we are showing these young players that they are good enough to play at this level.”
Yorkshire claimed away wins against Surrey and Warwickshire and home wins over Sussex and Essex.
The Warwickshire win at Rugby School on Sunday came when the hosts were unbeaten, winning five of their first six games.
George Hill claimed a career best 6-28 before Will Luxton’s 105 not out represented his maiden first-team century.
Asked whether that was the standout win of the campaign, Gibson said: “The Warwickshire win was a good one, but the win at the Oval (against Surrey last month) I think was probably even better.
“Even with all the players Surrey have missing, they have a very good team with a lot of internationals. That was a really good win, at the start of a competition especially.
“What I hoped was that it would give us the belief that we could go on and have a really good tournament.
“But you look back with hindsight and there were games when we just didn’t do enough.
“We did a lot of good things but not at the right time.”
Hill is currently the joint leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 17, while Luxton’s haul of 247 runs meant he finished as Yorkshire’s leading run-scorer in the tournament. Shan Masood (235), Matthew Revis (232) and James Wharton (231) were close behind.
Ben Coad was exceptional with the ball, claiming 12 wickets, while the likes of Dom Bess, Ben Cliff and Dan Moriarty advanced their cause.
Two more positives came in the last two matches, at Warwickshire and Glamorgan, with fledgling batters Yash Vagadia and Noah Kelly making their first-team debuts.
Kelly recently signed his maiden professional contract with the club, while Vagadia has extended his contract at Headingley.
“Noah Kelly is someone we think the world of,” added Gibson. “He’s one for the future.
“In terms of our succession planning, we see him as someone who can take over the opening batting position from Lythy in a couple of years.
“Any opportunity we get to play him, be it in the One-Day Cup, the second team or the County Championship, we will do so as often as we can.
“It’s the same with Yash. He’s more of a middle order player, someone who plays spin very well. We certainly think he’s a very good player with a big future at Yorkshire.”
