An Assessment Of Our Summer; part 2

Yorkshire's one day adventures in 2013 may frankly have been a load of "pants", but the county's first XI marked the 150th anniversary of the white rose with a spirited and prolonged challenge for the prized County Championship.

Remarkably, the Tykes exceeded expectations by coming close to capturing the County Championship in their first year back in the top flight. This leap of progress was all the more remarkable, given the fact that Yorkshire heavily lost their first fixture at home to Sussex. Admittedly, the Tykes were caught cold back in April and having been bowled out cheaply in their first innings, it was merely a case of how much that they would lose by. However, the county recovered tremendously from that early setback, and the only other loss that was incurred was at the hands of high-flying Durham who won crucially with about one hour left to spare. On that fine margin of time the County Championship was largely determined.

To their credit, Yorkshire lost only two first-class fixtures in 2013, having been unbeaten in 2012. In fact, the Tykes are unbeaten away from home in first-class fixtures over the last two summers - a marvellous achievement.

Gary Ballance, the flavour of the month amongst all cricketing experts, gets my vote as the outstanding perforrmer for Yorkshire in this near-miss County Championship campaign, narrowly ahead of the erratic but occasionally brilliant Adil Rashid. In fact, Ballance who ended the season with that double whammy at Surrey finished as the highest runs-scorer in the County Championship. Perhaps he is batting too far down the order for his adopted county, or maybe he won't be batting too often for Yorkshire in the future! 

Before I reveal the major averages for Gary and his colleagues, it is worth pointing out the following statistics: Yorkshire not only comfortably finished second, but they ended up with the largest haul of batting bonus points. However they were only fifth equal in terms of bowling bonus points. Tellingly, Durham accumulated a staggering forty-six points out of a maximum of 48 bowling bonus points, which pretty much reaffirms their apparent bowling strength. They clearly did not miss the departure of Liam Plunkett! Anyhow, Yorkshire won seven matches, drew seven matches, and lost only twice. This compares favourably with the champions Durham who lost no fewer than four times but who significantly won more matches and drew less. Does this mean that Durham had fewer matches ruined by unwelcome precipitation? Possibly. Mind you, the Durham climate is scarcely an improvement upon that of Leeds or Scarborough! Anyhow, here are the averages of our top performers:

BATTING:

Joe Root - 155.67

Gary Ballance - 62.55

Adil Rashid - 51.56

Kane Williamson - 50.38

Alex Lees - 45.45

Andrew Gale - 44.46

Jonny Bairstow - 40.62

Phil Jaques - 36.67

BOWLING:

Ryan Sidebottom - 20.31

Tim Bresnan - 24.56

Steven Patterson - 25.07

Jack Brooks - 25.26

Liam Plunkett - 28.33