Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Rich Pyrah has been speaking about Alice Clarke’s capabilities behind the stumps.
Rich Pyrah says Alice Clarke is keen to progress the wicketkeeping side of her game having been parachuted into the role last minute during Sunday’s defeat to Hampshire at Utilita Bowl.
New signing Clarke stepped in midway through Hampshire’s chase of 167 when captain Lauren Winfield-Hill, stood up to the stumps, took a nasty blow to the throat which required hospital treatment.
Winfield-Hill will not play in tomorrow’s clash with Essex at Chelmsford – 10.30am start – with her participation in Saturday’s season-finale against Lancashire at Headingley also surely in doubt. Jess Jonassen is likely to stand in as captain.
Clarke signed on loan from Lancashire midway through this summer and has since made her move across the Pennines permanent ahead of 2027.
The 25-year-old has been playing as a specialist batter, a role she is likely to fill for the majority of time going forwards given Winfield-Hill’s presence alongside Maddie Ward, who has not played since mid-June because of a foot stress fracture.
But keeping is certainly an important part of Clarke’s game.
Pyrah said: “Signing Clarkey, we’ve invested some time into her, and hopefully she’s going to be a good cricketer for us.
“We knew she was a decent keeper, and she showed it on Sunday when she came on. She did well, and it’s a handy skill to have.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Alice Clarke has been opening the batting in the last couple of weeks.
“She’s got good hands. We know that.
“You’ve seen in the field that she’s got good, solid hands.
“We’ve known that if anything happened, Clarkey is very capable of doing it.
“She enjoys keeping, and she wants to keep pushing it.”
Pyrah was asked whether he would consider a loan signing to cover Winfield-Hill’s absence during the final week of the summer.
“We won’t be bringing in loan players from anywhere else,” he said.
“This year, we obviously want to try and go and win every game. But it’s also about finding out about players and giving them opportunities because a lot of these girls haven’t played at this level before.
“We’ll be backing our own. If we lose Lauren, we’ll play another one of our own. It’s part of the journey.”
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Captain Lauren Winfield-Hill will be sidelined for the trip to Chelmsford, with Jess Jonassen set to stand in as captain.
This game is a clash between the bottom two sides in the table.
Yorkshire are second-bottom on 16 points, four ahead of the Eagles. Both counties have won three of 14 games.
Since the return of county cricket following The Hundred last month, Yorkshire have lost four games in a row but have the chance to change that. After Essex comes Lancashire at Headingley on Saturday in the final game of the season.
Pyrah added: “Back into the T20s, we got some good momentum and we won the three of the last four against some very good teams.
“Then we stopped for The Hundred, and after The Hundred we’ve not started from where we left off.
“There are a few reasons for that.
“So, it would be nice to finish with a couple of strong performances in the last two games because, overall, chucking some of these players into Tier 1 for the first time, we’ve done ok.
“We’ve challenged in every game that we’ve played, probably apart from Sunday really, and we should have won a lot more games.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Essex captain Grace Scrivens bats against Yorkshire in this season’s Vitality Blast at Headingley.
“I don’t want people to get caught up in the league table and results.
“There’s a bigger picture to this when two years ago we lost 11 players from the Northern Diamonds and we’ve literally started again from scratch.
“I just keep telling people, ’It’s frustrating we’re not winning, but take a step back and just see where we’ve come from in the last couple of years’.
“We’ll keep giving these girls opportunities and keep developing our own and bringing players in where we can.
“In a couple of years’ time, we will be up there.”
Essex are captained by batting all-rounder Grace Scrivens and coached by former England men’s white-ball spinner Stephen Parry, who is in his first season in charge having left his role as Lancashire’s assistant over the winter.
The Eagles were beaten by 118 runs against Surrey at Chelmsford on Sunday, bowled out for 226 in pursuit of a 345-target.
