Ben Coad has hailed the “high quality” of Yorkshire’s young up and comers and believes the county can still go a long way in the ongoing Metro Bank One-Day Cup – as long as the weather gives them the opportunity.
Given recent events, it will be no surprise to learn that today’s 50-over group clash with Nottinghamshire Outlaws fell victim to wet weather at Trent Bridge, with heavy rain throughout the day in the East Midlands forcing an abandonment at 12.40pm.
It means Yorkshire have now had two No Results from their opening three fixtures added to a narrow opening day defeat to champions Kent Spitfires at Scarborough on Tuesday, in which new ball seamer Coad claimed a brilliant 3-16 from 10 overs.
Coad, the senior member of a fledgling Vikings bowling attack, also spoke about the challenges around managing bowlers’ workloads in a period of the summer when the rain has hardly stopped.
“It’s seemed to follow us around a lot this year, the rain,” Coad said. “I’ve heard something silly like we’ve lost 1,700 overs now of the cricket that we could have played.
“We’ve had some very good years the last couple with the weather, but this is just a terrible one.
“The mood’s still really good. At the start of the season, we know we didn’t play our best cricket. But we’ve been playing some good cricket since the end of April.
“There’s been the odd game that has been rained off when we’re on the verge of victory. We can’t control anything about that, so we just need to keep believing in what we’re doing.

Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Ben Coad bowling in Tuesday’s MB50 clash with Kent.
“When it does, eventually – hopefully, become sunny, we can put that into practice and get the rewards we deserve.”
Coad, 29-years-old, is the most experienced member of the Vikings bowling group age wise in this competition. In the squad for this game, for example, Dom Bess is the only other man above 25.
The likes of Bens Cliff and Mike, George Hill, Dom Leech, Matthew Revis and Jack Shutt are all still in the infancy of their careers.
“I definitely do (think we have the capability to go a long way in this competition),” Coad continued. “You just have to look at the lads who aren’t playing. Cliffy is chomping at the bit having been performing really well in the second team.
“We know we’re on the back foot a bit after unluckily missing out in that first game against Kent and now two rained off games. But we know how we’ve been performing.
“It’s a young group, but there’s still quite a lot of experience in the team with the likes of Rev and Leechy for example.
“They’re high quality performers who’ve played quite a lot of first-team cricket, and we can go a long way.
“I know how good they are. I’ve watched them in the seconds and have trained a lot with them. I’ll always offer a hand if they need it, but they know what they’re doing.”

Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Matthew Revis celebrates a hat-trick against the Kent.
In claiming his 3-16 against Kent on Tuesday, Coad bowled his 10 overs straight through with the new ball.
He reflected: “It was my first white ball game for the ones for a while.
“The pitch was very friendly for me, it was doing plenty. But you still have to put it in the right area, and I was happy with how it came out.
“Me and Shan were talking. Just because it was doing so much early on, we’d thought we’d try and attack and get as many early wickets as possible because it might not be like that when I come back.”
Amazingly, Yorkshire have now had 10 straight games across all competitions, including the 50-over National Counties friendly at Cheshire last Sunday, affected by the weather.
The last game which was played without being affected was on June 22 – a Vitality Blast defeat against Birmingham Bears at Headingley.
Since then, the county have suffered five white ball abandonments in Blast and 50-over cricket, including today at Trent Bridge.
Talk is often rife during an English domestic season about bowlers’ heavy workloads. But, for Yorkshire recently, it has been exactly the opposite.
Abandoned on Thursday at Scarborough, abandoned today, their next MB50 fixture is not until next Sunday when the Vikings travel to Chelmsford to face Essex.
Coad added: “Personally, my workloads were a little bit high coming into these one-dayers, so it won’t be a bad thing if it’s just one week without bowling.
“If it’s a couple of weeks, which it might lead to being, then it could become a problem.
“Next week, we were going to have it fully off. But I’d imagine we’ll be training a couple of extra days to keep on top of those workloads.”