Adam Lyth says the most pleasing thing about his fabulous start to the season has been that his runs have come in key moments to aid Yorkshire’s encouraging form.
Lyth is the leading English run-scorer in this season’s LV= Insurance County Championship with 538 from five games, including two hundreds and three fifties.
The opener’s haul of 515 runs in April led to him being voted the White Rose Player of the Month.
Lyth has helped secure three wins and two draws, with Yorkshire second and seven points behind Lancashire at the halfway stage of the 10-game Group Three campaign.
If they finish in the top two, they will advance to the top group in August and September, enabling them to fight for the Championship title and the Bob Willis Trophy.
“You always hope for a good start, and I’ve had that with the runs that I’ve scored – a couple of hundreds and a few fifties, which has been fantastic,” said Lyth.
“Hopefully I can build on this now and there’s plenty more to come.
“It’s always nice to contribute and do well yourself. But it’s even more satisfying when you save a game like Glamorgan and set up a win at Kent with the way I played in both innings there.
“There’s no better feeling when you’ve helped your team get over the line, as Dave Willey did at Kent with his five-for and Patto against Northants.
“That’s the most pleasing and rewarding thing for me about the start to the season.
“It’s nice to have things like Player of the Month awards, but the goal is purely to score as many runs as I can for the team.”
Lyth heads into Thursday’s clash with Glamorgan at Cardiff on the back of a barren game by this season’s standards against Kent at Emerald Headingley, in which he scored only 23 in the first innings.
He was out caught at mid-on off Darren Stevens.
“It’s probably the worst shot I’ve ever played in my career. Still now, I don’t know how I played that shot,” he said. “Hopefully I don’t play many more like that.”
Lyth’s start to the season has led to the inevitable talk of an England Test recall. Not surprisingly, the 33-year-old is not taking too much notice of such speculation.
“I’ve had a great start and there might well be a bit of talk,” he continue. “But, I’ll be honest, I don’t keep an eye on that kind of thing. If people are talking about me, great.
“Rooty is the England captain and has seen me play.
“He knows what I’m capable of and tells me to score as many runs as I can.
“So I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. If anything happens like that, it happens. If not, I’ll keep trying to win us games here.”
Yorkshire’s start has been healthy, but it is clear there is room for improvement following draws against Glamorgan and Kent at home and away wins against Kent and Sussex away and Northamptonshire at home.
“The one thing we need to improve really is the first-innings batting,” added Lyth, whose side have only posted 300 plus twice in five first innings.
“But, in the second innings, we’ve been really, really good. It’s shown with the scores that we’ve got.
“For us to be a better team and potentially one which wins the Championship, we know we need to improve our first-innings scores.
“Especially at home, if we can get up towards 300, we know with the bowling attack we’ve got on the surfaces we play on, we’re going to be in a very good place.
“If we’re getting around 200, the pressure is put on the bowlers.
“They delivered against Northants last week, which was fantastic. But we can’t keep expecting them to bail us out.”