1: The 2001 Championship

Thirty-three years in the wilderness, it doesn’t bear thinking about does it. Forty days and forty nights is enough to found a religion, so it’s no wonder we had to endure half the county creating shrines to our one undeniably world-class player during that period, whilst the other half denounced him as a false idol. That’s what the bleakness of those thirty-three years did to people; ordinary, sane, check the sell-buy date on the corned beef before buying it folk, frustrated beyond belief by failure that lurched all too often towards mediocrity.

There was now a generation of Yorkshiremen who’d been born, learnt to drive, fought in wars, argued over whether to have spaghetti hoops for tea, and had children of their own, but had never seen us win the Championship. It was a rum do.

The drought had to end, and by the late 90’s the right set of circumstances were coming together to make the Championship ours again. Much credit must go to the coaching staff, particularly Arnie Sidebottom and Steve Oldham, who had quietly developed as good a set of seamers as the county has probably ever had: Gough, Silverwood, Sidebottom, Hoggard, Hutchinson, White and Hamilton. When the disciplined captaincy of David Byas was put in place in 96, and the flair and attacking instincts of Darren Lehmann arrived the year later, the pieces were in place. It was only a matter of time.

The title came in 2001, and it came in the style of old, with Yorkshire bossing the Championship almost from the outset. It was the victory over Northants at Headingley in mid May that took us top, and convincing wins in the next two matches at Swansea and home to our then nearest challengers Kent, which saw us pull away to a significant lead. In the space of just over a fortnight we’d won three games, created clear water to second place, and made it apparent that the Championship was ours to lose. After that the only significant challenge came when three wins in July saw Somerset emerge from the chasing pack to cut our lead in half to 14 points, and even then we still had a game in hand. The immensely satisfying home and away Roses victories soon after, however, pulled us away yet again. We were entering the home straight, the final four games, and our nearest rivals were close to needing snooker’s to catch us.

The next game away to Leicestershire saw the return from long term injury of Vaughan, and on a first day where the rest of our side struggled against a swinging ball, he played the kind of innings that a world audience would become familiar with the following year. Its quality was highlighted all the more when Leicestershire’s batsmen, using the same conditions, crumbed to 121 all out. Second time round, batting had become easier and Yorkshire waited until well into the third day before declaring, setting Leicestershire a target they were never going to reach.

At Scarborough three days later, we faced a Glamorgan who’d been struggling all summer to find form. They weren’t to regain it against us, as a collapse from 185/4 to 223 all out, was followed by another imposing Yorkshire first innings total built round a 243 run partnership between Craig White and Matthew Wood. A similar cautious declaration as in the previous game left Glamorgan 327 runs behind on first innings. By the end of the third day they were already six down and only weather could save them; four wickets the following morning to the combination of Kirby and Lehmann ended their hopes, and brought us the Championship we’d waited so long for. It was fitting that Byas took the winning catch, fitting we won with a resounding victory and perhaps fitting the celebrations were at Scarborough, a ground loved in a way Headingley will never be.

To win a Championship, and nine games along the way, you obviously need a great team effort, but in honesty our batting that year relied heavily on the efforts of a consistent few. Matthew Wood, who after a slow start turned in a fine season despite an ever changing opening partner, whilst lower down it was Lehmann and Byas at four and five who formed the engine room of the batting line-up; Lehmann providing sheer weight of runs, Byas vital ones, often made as he nursed the tail through to more competitive scores. Vaughan too made important contributions at the start and end of the summer, although England duty and a serious cartilage tear forced him out for ten weeks in between.

That combination of England duty and injury affected us elsewhere too, with Hoggard missing much of the season with back problems and a stress fracture of the left foot, whilst Gough only returned from international duty to help set up the home Roses win and fall out even more with Byas.

Perhaps nothing highlights the depth in our bowling resources more than that we could afford to lose the likes of Gough and Hoggard for much of the season and still comfortably have the best attack in the division. All the seamers that summer seemed to come good, and Richard Dawson had an excellent debut year, one that would see him prematurely promoted onto an England tour of India that winter. But leading the attack was the surprise package, Steve Kirby, a fiercely competitive quick we’d found unloved and unwanted in the Leicestershire seconds. With Hoggard pulled out of the Kent home game by England, Kirby took his place as well as seven Kent second innings wickets. When he took twelve more in the next home game, it confirmed to many that this was destined to be our year; why else would a side already rich in bowling be gifted a spearhead of such quality from out of nowhere? God, it seemed, was a Yorkshireman once again.

Looking back now, there’s one unanswered question about 2001. Not how did we manage to win the Championship that year, but given the depth of bowling resources available to us, more impressive than those at Durham now, how did we only win the title once with that team? The answer is that like Durham we lacked the same quality of home produced batting talent, and unlike Durham we only had Darren Lehmann to help, rather than a Benkenstein, a DiVenuto and a Chanderpaul. What price a Jacques Rudolph to add into the 2001 side; how many titles would we have won then?

The long wait over