Andrew Gale: Victory over Surrey was just what the doctor ordered!

WE needed a win at Yorkshire to finally get us out of the blocks in the County Championship and it was a great victory in the end for us against Surrey at Headingley '“ and just what we needed.
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow celebrate their record- breaking partnership against Surrey.Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow celebrate their record- breaking partnership against Surrey.
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow celebrate their record- breaking partnership against Surrey.

Although, that said, I thought it was going to be ruined by the weather. But the lads dug deep into their reserves and put a good bowling performance in on the last day and we wrapped up the win just in time.

The forecast kept changing during the game. To begin with, a couple of days out, you could see that Wednesday was going to be a bad day.

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But then it improved and promptly got worse again and we were on and off a little bit which was frustrating, particularly on the final afternoon when we came off for about fifteen minutes when we had them six or seven down.

So it was one of those where we knew that if we got on for a period of time, then we would bowl them out and luckily we managed to get back on and get the job done and claim the victory.

There were some really good contributions from the team. Rooty [Joe Root] and Jonny’s [Bairstow] partnership was just fantastic and really showed why those two guys are playing Test cricket and they are right on top of their game.

It was fantastic to watch and they were flying. Don’t forget that we were 45-3, but they produced just a masterclass really and it was great viewing.

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Rooty has been great to have around in the past few weeks and he has been a fantastic influence upon the team.

Obviously, him and Jonny will go away with England and we probably will not see them for a while now, but they have definitely left their mark on us.

Credit to the bowlers on the last day as well. Especially with us going down to three seamers with David Willey going down injured with an abductor strain. We needed the bowlers to dig deep and that is what they did.

We knew there would be enough in the pitch if the bowlers put the ball in good areas for long enough and we managed to do that.

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As for me, I took a bang to my knee in the game, but it’s alright, just a bit sore. I was fielding at short leg and I shouldn’t have really been fielding there!

Although you can’t really look into the table much at this time of year, it is nice to be at the top of the league and get a win on the board and get some confidence and we take that down to Somerset for our four-dayer which starts tomorrow.

Taunton is usually a good pitch and a pretty flat deck.

But it is one of those grounds where you can’t afford to slack off. We have been burnt a couple of times down there with Somerset chasing big scores, so we will have to be on it, in the game.

England start out the Test summer against Sri Lanka at Headingley next week and there were a couple of headline inclusions in the uncapped duo of James Vince and Jake Ball.

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Ball is a good bowler with good skills who can swing the ball both ways and bowled that good attacking length against us for Notts.

He’s a real hot prospect for the future.

Vince is just a good player. He has always shown signs of being an outstanding player and I think he has just backed that up with sheer weight of runs in the last few years.

You could tell when he got that century for Hampshire against us at Headingley that he looked like he had a lot of time.

His technique looks to be up for the Test arena.

Hopefully, the weather will behave itself at Leeds and I am at the Test on Thursday, so fingers crossed we can have five good days’ weather.

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Finally, it was sad news this week to hear of the passing of legendary West Indian commentator Tony Cozier.

It is sad to see him go. Along with Richie Benaud, their’s were voices that you recognised and always associated with the great game of cricket.