Tipped to push for the championship, the White Rose county's demise began when it was decided to cut costs and dispense with their overseas player
Yorkshire have responded to relegation in time-honoured manner. The chairman has laid into the players. Twas ever thus. How many Yorkshiremen does it take to change a light bulb? Eleven. One to moan "I'll bloody do it if nobody else will", and the other 10 to chunter that he is doing it wrong.
Colin Graves has exploded in the accepted manner for a Yorkshire chairman ? in the Yorkshire Post. "It's down to the players who have been on the park ? nobody else. The performances have been a disgrace; they have been unacceptable. The players need to take a long, hard look at themselves, as far as I'm concerned."
The truth is that it is time for everybody in Yorkshire cricket to take a look at themselves. For my entire adult life too many people connected with the county have been making the same mistakes, mistaking bombast for strategy, assertion for improvement, stubbornness for strength of character.
Many of us fell for Yorkshire's talk of a new dawn. This correspondent tipped them for the championship and has looked foolish ever since. We looked at an exciting young side under a confident captain, Andrew Gale, and believed him when he proclaimed: "The White Rose has been reborn." That is the trouble with this reincarnation lark. You imagine you will come back as a handsome prince and find instead that you have got another 20 years as a proboscis monkey.
That this Yorkshire squad is talented is undeniable. Lancashire stalwarts have observed their own county putting in a concerted championship challenge and admitted that, man for man, Yorkshire have more talent. But Lancashire, supremely organised under Peter Moores, have squeezed every ounce of potential from a squad that have not got ahead of themselves.
What was striking about Gale's assertion was that it entirely ignored Yorkshire's last-game disintegration at Headingley in 2010, against a Kent side heading for relegation. On the final day they still had a shout of the championship, only to collapse in a fashion that was not merely na�ve, it was crazed. The signs should have been clear: the side still had a lot of learning to do.
Gale's up-and-at-'em captaincy was perfect as long as Yorkshire could regard themselves as underdogs. No pressure there then. It became entirely different when they had to cope with the pressure of being championship favourites. Such pressures need a deeper, more sensitive style of man-management. Gale has many admirable qualities, and his faith in Yorkshire's ability to produce a powerful homegrown side is among them, but his impatience for success as the season failed to spark perhaps became counterproductive.
And pressure in Yorkshire is not released, it is imposed. How many times have we heard Michael Vaughan or Geoffrey Boycott this summer present Joe Root as an England player of the future? He may well be, but he has just completed his first full season and with 937 runs at 36 has finished eighth in the Yorkshire averages. Let the guy develop quietly. And the publicity given to Root is lavished upon Jonny Bairstow 100 times more, the same Jonny Bairstow who had still to make a championship hundred when the season began.
Graves is wrong when he says it is only the players' fault. It was not the players who ruled that Yorkshire could not afford an overseas player because they were in financial trouble, aggravated by the �21m Headingley pavilion, a vanity project jointly managed by Yorkshire CCC and Leeds Met University, and as the place looks and acts like a university block, there is no doubt who has got the better of the deal.
That absent overseas player was Jacques Rudolph, whose 1,375 championship runs at 50.92 had to be found elsewhere. "Everybody will have to get an extra 10%," Yorkshire's coach, Martyn Moxon, murmured at the start of the season, but he knew that when you remove the bedrock around which the rest of the side can bat, you are more likely to lose 10% than gain it.
Bolstered by Rudolph's presence, the Whitby-born dasher, Adam Lyth, had scored 1,509 runs at 52.03 in 2010 and was talked of as an England one-day player. In 2011, he made 553 at 26.33; beneath the dash was a batsman still looking for a method. When Root batted, you could see him learning. You could not see that in Lyth.
Yorkshire tried instead to lean on Anthony McGrath, but a rival county coach had witheringly observed in April "lean on McGrath and he will fall over". He made 485 runs at 21.08. Gary Ballance's emergence was a bonus, but he batted when the tone of the innings was already set. By the time that Rudolph returned briefly in late season, it was too late.
What must Ryan Sidebottom be feeling? His return ? on a three-year contract at 33 ? encouraged much talk of Yorkshire's homegrown policy. Sidebottom had a redoubtable season, his pace down these days, but every sinew strained as he took 62 wickets at 22. His support, though, was virtually non-existent. Ajmal Shahzad was out of sorts and might well change counties; Adil Rashid's leg-spin has deteriorated to the point where one wonders if an introverted character will ever consistently conquer a bowling style best given to extroverts; Steven Patterson and Oliver Hannon-Dalby went backwards and viewed themselves scapegoats. At least Richard Pyrah proved himself a cricketer of common sense.
Moxon at least retains Graves's support, and so he should. Since the departure of the former chief executive, Stewart Regan, to the Scottish FA ? his legacy, yes, an upgraded ground, but also barely manageable debts and a pavilion not fit for purpose ? Yorkshire have been virtually unmanaged. Graves, founder of Costcutter, has bankrolled Yorkshire to an extent where he has the right to say anything he likes. But as a successful businessman, he should reflect that Yorkshire gives the impression at times that it is being run by absentee landlords. And when the plumbing goes wrong, the place is half flooded before anybody recognising what is going on.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/sep/13/yorkshire-relegation-county-championship
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