Adam Lyth praised Glamorgan’s hat-trick hero Michael Neser as Yorkshire’s stand-in captain spoke of a difficult day at the office on day two at Headingley.
Yorkshire are behind the eight-ball at the halfway stage of their ongoing fourth round LV= Insurance County Championship match, with Glamorgan 57-2 in their second innings and ahead by 196.
In reply to a first-innings 245, Yorkshire slipped from 62-5 overnight to 106 all out amidst a rain-affected day which saw only 29.3 overs bowled today.
Neser finished with career best figures of 7-32 from 11 overs, including his first ever first-class hat-trick.
“Full credit to Neser with his hat-trick, he took the wind out of our sails really,” said stand-in captain Lyth.
“It was a very difficult day. To be fair, I thought they bowled extremely well last night and this morning and showed us the areas where we needed to bowl first innings. Unfortunately we were a little bit short at times and a bit wide.
“If we’re being honest, they were 60 too many on that wicket. They bowled well, but we were well below par in just scraping over 100. Yeah, not the ideal start to the day.
“I guess we were saved by the rain.
“Now we have to pick ourselves up, put the ball in the right area tomorrow and hopefully restrict them to a total that we can potentially chase.
“We have to roll our sleeves up and reverse back to what happened here against Leicester on the final day. They chased down nearly 400.
“Conditions were a bit different then to now, but all we can do is look forwards. We can’t look backwards.”
Lyth continued: “We’ve got our best bowler out injured (Ben Coad, groin).
“He came back out onto the field last night to have a run around and see how it got.
“I think he did the same thing a couple of times last year, but this one’s nowhere near as bad. That’s a positive. How long he’s going to be out for, we don’t know yet.”
Yorkshire are still searching for their first win of the Division Two campaign at the fourth attempt following a defeat and two draws – one of which saw them not take the field against Gloucestershire at Bristol due to rain and a damp outfield.
When asked for his review of the season so far, Lyth added: “It’s just unfortunate the way it’s going at the minute. We’re not having a heap of luck and not playing as well as we can do.
“The Hove game was bitterly disappointing. I thought we were going to win that game pretty comfortably in the end. But you can’t control the weather. Looking back, maybe we could have gone for it earlier. But had we done and lost two or three more wickets, we could have lost it that night.
“Leicester second innings, the way we bowled, it wasn’t good enough. But had we taken our chances, it could have been totally different.
“In this game, we’ve bowled ok without being at our best. Then we’ve got nowhere near enough runs.”
