Ottis Gibson couldn’t hide his disappointment after Yorkshire were beaten by Sussex at Hove inside three days, narrowly failing to chase down a 183 target.
Yorkshire’s coach was reflecting on his county’s second defeat in six Vitality County Championship matches this season – this one against the Division Two leaders.
He then also revealed some hugely frustrating injury news for the county, with the expectation that fast bowlers Mickey Edwards and Matt Milnes will play no further part in this season having been diagnosed with stress fractures of the foot and back respectively.
Ben Coad did not bowl due to a back injury today, with Gibson admitting: “It doesn’t look good.”
He is, however, hoping to get Matthew Fisher back from a sprained ankle in time for the start of the Vitality Blast later this month.
On this result at Hove, Gibson said: “Obviously, I’m disappointed.
“There’s a common thread to some of the things I say after matches, and for a long while I’ve been saying that we’re playing good cricket, which we have been doing. Here again, we did. But the victory eludes us, and it’s disappointing.
“To chase 180 on the third day on that pitch, we should have got the runs, but we didn’t. And that’s what pressure does to you.
“There was pressure, a little bit of inexperience.
“Ollie Robinson bowled a really good spell. He’s an international bowler and knocked our tail over.
“The irony is that I’ve been wanting someone to knock tail-enders over when we’re bowling, but he’s done it to us.
“In the end, we go home disappointed.”
Robinson got Adam Lyth caught behind with a snorter of a short ball. His departure was the first of Yorkshire’s last four wickets to fall for three runs, from 158-6 to 161 all out.
Lyth had been brilliant for 73 and looked like he was on the way to carrying Yorkshire to victory. In the end, Robinson’s four-wicket haul decided the contest.
“It was a very good ball,” said Gibson. “I don’t think there was anything he could have done differently with that ball.
“This morning, we said that someone was going to have to play an innings similar to the one Tom Alsop (86 in the second innings) played for them yesterday. Adam was that guy and played really well. But, again, Robinson – the world-class bowler in their attack, took care of him and then our tail-enders.”
Reflecting on the moments which cost Yorkshire, Gibson said: “I thought yesterday we missed an opportunity.
“We bowled well, but a little bit of ill-discipline cost us – a wicket off a no ball, a couple of dropped catches.
“These things happen, but when the margins are so small these things will tell in the end.
“We also won the toss on a grassy wicket, put them in and gave them 40 runs in six overs on day one. These things are things we need to iron out.”
On the chase, he said: “Anything above 150 was always going to be a difficult chase, and we said that before we started. We had an opportunity to restrict them to under that.
“In the end, Alsop’s innings made the difference in the match, and today we weren’t good enough to keep them out.
“We didn’t play well enough to win, but we played some good cricket – just not enough of it.”
Coad left the field late last night with a back injury having taken his sixth wicket of the match.
He didn’t take the field when Yorkshire bowled this morning and batted at 11 this evening.
Asked if he will be fit to face Northamptonshire at Wantage Road on Friday, Gibson said: “I don’t believe so, it doesn’t look good. You saw in him getting run out, he was struggling to run.”
On the other injuries, he went on: “Mickey has got a stress fracture in his foot, and I don’t believe we’ll see him again for the rest of the season.
“Milnes has got a stress fracture in his back, and I don’t believe we’ll see him for the rest of the season either.
“Fish had a sprained ankle and has been doing some running at Headquarters. I don’t believe he’ll be ready for Northampton, but we’ll hopefully get him ready for the Blast and see how he’s travelling after that.”
On the injury front, especially, Gibson and Yorkshire aren’t having much luck at present.
There was a wry smile when the coach added: “I said to the lads that before this game, ‘Based on how we are playing and where I come from, if you feel like there’s been a spell cast on you, what we would do in Barbados is go and walk into the sea backwards or something’.
“It’s something we contemplated doing, and maybe we should have done it.
“Maybe that was that thing which would have got us over the line this week!”