Ah, the Yorkshire captaincy. What a double edged sword you are in the modern era. Like Megan Fox agreeing to French kiss you on condition she can knee you in the groin afterwards – you wonder if the bragging rights are worth the agony you have to go through.

That’s a question Anthony McGrath must be asking himself at the end of a long hard summer. Benefit year, regaining the captaincy of a club where supporter expectation rarely matches the reality of a side perennially on the brink of relegation, and providing the spine for a middle-order newly missing Jacques Rudolph. Any two out of three would be enough, but the full set? You felt from the start there was a chance something would have to give, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Mags’ personnel form did exactly that.

An average of 33 is a modest enough return for a class player at what should be the peak of his career, but the harder you look, the more disappointing it appears. The majority of McGrath’s runs came at the start of the season, 519 @ 86.5 in the first four games. An impressive enough total, but one bolstered by a century in a rain effected game against Worcestershire and a double ton in the run bloated bore-a-thon at Edgbaston, and that after being dropped more than once early on. To be brutally honest, they where runs that helped boost the end of season average, but ones that contributed little to Yorkshire’s championship survival.

The record for the rest of the season, 12 matches, 306 runs @ 16.11, is that of a player keeping his place merely because he’s captain. Fine if you’ve the resources of Lord Hawke or the captaincy skills of Mike Brearley, but harder to justify when you’re also under continued criticism for both selection decisions and on field tactics.

In truth, much of Yorkshire’s season would have panned out the same way regardless of who was captain. Even the cricketing equivalent of Garry Kasparov could do little to alter the batting collapses and dropped catches that bedevilled us all season long. And I don’t buy that Mags was quite as poor a captain as some of his critics made out, just not one capable of the inspiration or innovation needed to turn round a side that has struggled in the top division for a number of years.*

But then captains of that quality are rare. Whether Yorkshire feel they have a younger man in the squad who matches up, may well determine if Mags gets a second season in charge.

*Captaincy and team selection will be covered in more detail in my overall summary of Yorkshire’s season

Championship – 16 matches, 825 runs @ 33.00

Friends Provident – 8 matches, 189 @ 23.62

Twenty/20 Cup – 7 matches, 132 @ 22.00

Pro40 – 6 matches, 109 @ 36.33

(Mags photo: By kind permission of Dave Morton)