A rearguard effort from Hampshire to draw at Yorkshire felt almost as good as a win for their captain, James Vince, after his injury-stricken side were forced to use their head coach Dale Benkenstein and team analyst Joe Maiden as substitute fielders on the final day.
The two staff, along with the 12th man Mason Crane, were pressed into service after their fast bowler Fidel Edwards sustained an ankle injury during the warm-up, to follow a suspected broken finger for Sean Ervine and Liam Dawson’s abdominal strain.
With the winter signing Reece Topley breaking his hand during their draw at home to Warwickshire last week, and both Gareth Berg and Ryan Stevenson out for the start of the campaign, Hampshire’s squad is already looking threadbare; the loan market is now set to be tapped for reinforcements.
Tipped to go down before the season, they can certainly draw strength from their fightback against the champions at Headingley, having spent the first two days watching Yorkshire rack up 593 for nine declared, only to post 453 themselves and reduce their hosts to 183 for eight by the time the two sides shook hands.
“We just have to battle on,” said Vince, who played down his own 119 in the match helping his England claims. “We’ve shown good fight and with bowlers going down in both games, the two draws are almost as good as wins.”
After losing Edwards first thing – the West Indian was due to stay in Leeds overnight for further scans – Vince’s attack responded superbly to put the pressure back on Yorkshire, who went into lunch 67 for four and just 207 runs ahead as James Tomlinson and Ryan McLaren picked up two wickets apiece.
Tomlinson trapped Alex Lees lbw with his fourth ball, before ending a slightly tortured four from Gary Ballance, in which the left-hander took 28 balls to get off the mark before chipping tamely to cover. McLaren then profited from a loose waft by first-innings centurion Adam Lyth before a brute to the in-form Jonny Bairstow saw him edge behind.
The Yorkshire captain, Andrew Gale, whose 46 in an afternoon stand of 73 with Jack Leaning over 27 overs effectively sealed the result, admitted his fellow batsmen must now step up and end a reliance on Bairstow, whose 246 in the first innings followed a similar top-order wobble of 41 for three.
“It’s not panic stations – it’s the first game of the season,” Gale said. “But there’s going to come a period in the season when you can’t rely on your Jonny Bairstows to keep standing up and making unbelievable contributions.
“The lad is playing a different game to the rest of us, I think. But we won’t be able to rely, at 40 for three, on Jonny to come in and get a double-hundred. The first three partnerships at Headingley you’ve got to earn the right against the new ball. It is very difficult but you’ve got to find a way.”
Gale had warned before the season that flat pitches would be prepared against his side away from home but found himself critical of the surface prepared for this first fixture at home; changes to the toss rule were no excuse. “The groundsman maybe had a bit too much time on his hands before the season and sat on the roller a bit too much. I would have liked a bit more in the wicket on the third and fourth day. It was too good,” he said.
