Andrew Gale: Great news for Yorkshire that Dizzy is still at the helm

JASON GILLESPIE is staying at the club and for everyone at Yorkshire, it is very positive for us.
Jason Gillespie.Jason Gillespie.
Jason Gillespie.

Dizzy would have been hard to replace as he’s been an excellent asset for us and him and myself have built a great relationship.

Personally speaking, it would have been disappointing to see him go.

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But it has worked in our favour with England having now appointed Trevor Bayliss as coach, and leaving Dizzy focused on winning trophies with Yorkshire.

He’s also got an exciting winter in the Big Bash as well in Australia to look forward to and I feel it is a win-win situation for him.

It is good and a positive he is still at Yorkshire, for sure.

If he’d gone to England, it would have been tough to replace him at this stage of the season for us at Yorkshire. It was so good he didn’t go in the end.

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We had a bit of banter down at Somerset with him, I’ve got to say, and every time his phone rang, the lads ribbed him a little bit saying: ‘Andrew Strauss is on that phone again.’

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There is certainly nowhere to hide in that Yorkshire dressing room!

So we had some banter. But I am glad all the rumours and speculation have gone away now and that we can concentrate on the job in hand.

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Onto the County Championship clash against Somerset at Taunton and I thought we showed a lot of resilience.

From the position we were in, we had them 60 behind with seven or eight wickets down and we really should have got a first-innings lead.

But we didn’t bowl very well and didn’t capitalise and we got away from our processes a little bit and put ourselves under pressure really.

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From then on in, when we were something like 120-5, batting second time around, we were up against it a bit.

But Bluey (Jonny Bairstow)and Rash (Adil Rashid) dug in a little bit and got us out of jail, really. Bluey showed his maturity and how much he has come on as a player.

He read the situation really really well, got stuck in and played a great knock to get us a draw, really.

I have always said to the lads: ‘If we can’t win, don’t get beat,’ and that is exactly what we did in the game.

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I thought Jack Leaning was outstanding in the game, as was Bres (Tim Bresnan). To get someone like Bres coming in at number eight and scoring runs shows how deep we bat and how much strength in depth we have got with the bat.

It was a big knock in the first innings to get to 438 and then in the second innings, Rash got stuck in.

He hasn’t batted that much recently and spent some time at the crease. But Somerset is also a good hunting ground for him and he will be disappointed he didn’t get his hundred. But he helped get us out of jail.

England headed into the Headingley Test against New Zealand on the back of a fine win at Lord’s, with Ben Stokes now the new hero.

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I went on my second Lions tour with him and he’s someone who I definitely thought back then was a Freddie Flintoff-type of match-winning player for the side.

We had some sparkles of it over the past year or so, but we have never seen him consistently do it. It was certainly a match-winning innings from him at Lord’s; it was fantastic knock to play in the fashion he did.

I do think his batting has been underestimated from the start. He got into the Durham team as a batter and his bowling was just a bonus. But for England, he has probably been a bowler who bats a little bit.

I think the more responsibility you give him, the more he will stand up and surprise you. It was a fantastic knock and I am really pleased that England are back to winning ways.

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Stokes has now played a couple of great knocks, but I have now seen he is being compared to Ian Botham. He has big boots to fill there, that is for sure.

For me, it’s important not to put too much pressure on the lad. Let him play in a positive manner.

If he is going to play that way, he is going to get out at times and you will think: ‘What is he doing?’

But if he continues to play in that manner, then he will win you a couple of games here and there.

***Andrew Gale’s column is in association with Blacks Solicitors***