Coach Ottis Gibson was frustrated but still able to reflect on some positives following Yorkshire’s exit at the group stage of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, which was confirmed with defeat against Glamorgan at Cardiff today.
The Vikings lost a low-scoring Group B clash by 62 runs, one which saw them fall short in pursuit of 231.
Ben Cliff and Dan Moriarty struck three times apiece in Glamorgan’s 230-9 from 47 overs before stand-in captain Jonny Tattersall made 51, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a fourth defeat added to four wins for the county.
Gibson said: “Look, it’s not gone the way we hoped today.
“This morning when we turned up, the prospects of getting into the top three were very remote. But we still wanted to put on a good show. It’s not gone our way, and we’re a bit disappointed we didn’t play better.
“I thought they probably got 30 runs too many.
“Up front with the new ball, there were a lot of soft balls that got hit for fours. When they bowled, their new ball partnership is a lot more experienced than ours, and they showed us how to bowl on that pitch and made it really difficult for us.
“That’s been the way our tournament has gone.
“We’ve played really well and won games, and then we’ve let ourselves down and lost games.”
Gibson, however, is right when he says: “For sure, there have been some positives.”
Yorkshire won matches away at Surrey and Warwickshire, the latter unbeaten at the time, and Sussex and Essex at home.
George Hill’s 17 wickets leaves him as the competition’s joint leading wicket-taker at this moment in time, while Will Luxton’s 105 not out in victory over Warwickshire at Rugby on Sunday was his maiden first-team century.
Ben Coad was superb with the ball, taking 12 wickets – he was rested today with Championship cricket in mind alongside Fin Bean and James Wharton – while Cliff advanced his cause with eight wickets.
Noah Kelly and Yash Vagadia have both made their first-team debuts in the last four days, here and at Warwickshire respectively.
Gibson said: “From the outset, when we started out, we’ve always – for the last three years – used it as a development competition.
“Finlay Bean made his first-team debut in this competition (2022) and is now playing very well in the County Championship.
“Ben Cliff made his debut (2022) in this and has since made huge strides, especially this season but over the course of the last couple. He looks like a really good prospect for the future for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
“The last two games, we’ve seen Yash Vagadia make a debut. Today, he looked really good before he got out.
“Today, you saw Noah Kelly debut.
“One of the things that we’ve said all along is that we were always going to promote and project young Yorkshire talent. We’ve done that over the course of this competition.”
