After a bitterly cold first day at Edgbaston, where 38 overs were lost to bad light and rain, and Yorkshire battled to 177 for four by the close, their head coach Jason Gillespie could be forgiven for pining for the warmer climes of his home country.
But while the Australian has no complaints over the weather in England, and spoke glowingly of his side’s performance against their expected title rivals, Gillespie insisted any talk of him becoming his national side’s next bowling coach remains moot, as he is yet to be contacted about the role.
Darren Lehmann, Australia’s head coach, said on Friday his former team-mate tops a list of potential targets for the job, which was vacated when Craig McDermott stepped down last month. Gillespie, who found himself similarly linked with the role of England head coach last summer, insists he remains happy in his current job but chose not to rule anything out definitively.
“I haven’t had any contact [from Australia], so there’s nothing to report to be honest,” the former fast bowler said after stumps.
“If anything changes, I’ll let you know. At this point, I am just focusing on my role here. You don’t rule out any opportunities in the future. It’s whether you feel like you can make a difference in any job that becomes available.”
Gillespie, who insisted family will come first in any decision, instead preferred to focus on his side’s travails during their staccato opening exchanges here, in which Gary Ballance and Jack Leaning kept the home side at bay with a stand of 92 for the fifth wicket in 28.3 overs that prevented an earlier top‑order wobble from being terminal.
Both men will resume in the morning on exactly 50, with Ballance doing his chances of an England Test recall against Sri Lanka next month no harm at all by digging deep against a high quality, if inconsistent attack with the national selector, James Whitaker, looking on. Certainly his own head coach was impressed by the left-hander’s three hours of defiance.
“Gary absorbed some really good bowling and stuck to his zones and how he plays,” said Gillespie. “He’s obviously strong through the off-side off the back foot and tucked around the corner well. I didn’t agree with it when he got dropped last summer [during the Ashes] but that was their call.”
Leaning’s contribution, off 90 balls, was also timely, given the expected return of Joe Root for the fixture at Nottinghamshire next week. One of the batsmen will have to make way, with Gillespie and his captain, Andrew Gale, facing a selection headache. As was the case in the draw with Hampshire last week, the first three wickets fell with not many on the board.
Warwickshire’s morning with the ball, after losing the toss, was a mixed bag only for a three-wicket burst in the space of 40 balls to change the complexion of the session. Rikki Clarke got things moving by demolishing the stumps of Alex Lees on 19, before Boyd Rankin profited from a duffed pull shot by Adam Lyth for the same score as Ian Bell juggled the catch at mid-off.
With Gale then playing on a full toss from Keith Barker on four, Yorkshire stumbled into an early lunch 82 for four. Such a situation has, in recent times, prompted a bail-out of RBS proportions from Jonny Bairstow but when a beautiful inswinger from Chris Woakes crashed into his stumps on 20 in the third over after the resumption, via a slight inside edge, the county champions needed others to step up.
In Ballance and Leaning, Yorkshire found solidity, with their pair reaching 154 for four by the second stoppage for rain at 3.26pm, before negotiating a tricky 30-minute evening session in which both men brought up their half-centuries.
