Jonny Tattersall and James Wharton are confident Yorkshire can make an impact on their return to Division One of the Vitality County Championship next summer.
Tattersall has captained the county in the latter stages of the season, with Shan Masood unavailable, and Wharton starred in their promotion-clinching draw with Northamptonshire, which finished at Headingley yesterday.
He hit a fantastic career best 285, writing his name into the record books in the process.
Only triple centurions Darren Lehmann, Don Bradman twice and John Edrich have scored more than the 23-year-old Huddersfield-born star in first-class matches at Headingley.
Both men were asked about Yorkshire’s hopes and aims for 2025 – their first top-flight campaign since 2022.
After helping the county win five of their last seven Championship matches, wicketkeeper-batter Tattersall said: “We know when we put four days of cricket together, session in and session out – as we’ve done over the last seven games, we know we can cause anyone problems.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Yorkshire’s squad and coaching staff celebrate promotion at Headingley yesterday.
“We’re going to focus on ourselves and us as a group and what we can do, stick together and believe we can compete.
“Obviously it will be different challenges of what it will present, but we’re fully expecting to not go in there and be scraping around the bottom. We’ll be expecting a decent season next season.
“We’ve got a great strong squad of players. We’re losing a couple, we’re probably going to need to replace and improve in certain areas as well. But we’ll work hard in the winter to improve and be in a good space when April comes back around.”
Wharton’s mammoth final round score against Northamptonshire, completed during yesterday’s fourth afternoon, took his tally of Championship runs to 833 for the season – the second best haul in Yorkshire’s squad behind Adam Lyth, who topped the charts with 1,215.
Wharton said: “It’s going to be tougher cricket in Division One.
“But we’re ready, and we’ve got experience under our belts. We’re ready to go and take that challenge on.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. James Wharton celebrates reaching 250 against Northamptonshire.
“We’ve got the most batting and bowling points in the country this year, and we’ve dominated teams. We beat (Division Two champions) Sussex virtually by an innings at Scarborough.
“They (Division One teams) should be ready for us. We’re not going to roll over and die, we’re going to try and beat them and play to win.”
Wharton was also asked about the dressing room environment and the confidence within it.
“You can ask anyone in there, and they’ll say they’ve never been in a dressing like that, and some of them have been playing for 15 years,” he added.
“Everybody wants everyone to do well. There is no selfishness, no egos, everyone is just happy for each other, and that is how you win games.
“These last three months, it’s been there even more. We played good cricket at the start of the year, but we fell short. Something switched in the second half of the season, and we turned it on.”
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com. Yorkshire stand-in captain Jonny Tattersall is confident of a successful season in Division One next summer.
