The Twelfth Man 2020

Photo courtesy of Jeremy Lonsdale LYTH…OPENING UP Adam Lyth is Yorkshire’s beneficiary in 2020 and, as such, we look forward to seeing him at our Christmas lunch in December. Before that he talks about his role as a senior player and his new contract A dam Lyth, once a wide eyed young whipper snapper inspired by watching county cricket on his home ground at Scarborough, is now an experienced head in the Yorkshire dressing room. The prolific left-hander, awarded a testimonial year at Emerald Headingley in 2020, opened the batting with 17-year-old Academy prospect Matty Revis in the Specsavers County Championship clash with Kent towards the end of the 2019 season. Scoring runs and winning matches is Lyth’s prima- ry role, but helping up and comers like Revis progress is not far behind when it comes to importance. Aged 32, Lyth has scored more than 17,000 runs in his pro career since debut in 2006, chiefly for Yorkshire but also for England, making seven Test appearances in the summer of 2015. A two-time Championship winner whose breakthrough year came in 2010 when he scored 1,509 Division One runs, has spoken of just what playing for Yorkshire means to him. “I used to go to the Scarborough festival with my mum and dad and watch the likes of (Martyn) Moxon and (Darren) Gough,” said the Whitby-born player, who learnt his trade playing his club cricket at North Marine Road. “I always wanted to play for Yorkshire and pull on that shirt. Every time you pull the shirt on it’s an incredible feeling. When you pull on the full rose you’re representing all those capped players before you and the his- tory that goes with it. It really does mean a hell of a lot every day you go out on that field. I’ve got fond memories of being a young player, and it’s all about me transferring that, being an experienced pro and passing on the knowledge to these youngsters. It will be nice to continue to do that. There’s no way I’d have gotten the runs I got in 2010 if it wasn’t for the players like Anthony McGrath and Jacques Rudolph to help you while you’re out in the middle and in the nets. It’s massively important that me and Gary Ballance, being the senior batters in the squad, pass on as much knowledge as we can to the young lads. They do come and chat to us, and we do try and chat to them. It’s important they keep learning and transfer their skills to the middle. “I was lucky enough to come into a team with experienced pros, and I opened the first time with Joe Sayers, a capped player at the time. We had McGrath and Rudolph, and only a few games later I was batting with Michael Vaughan. You’ve got to pinch yourself batting with the England captain. Matty Revis is 17, and it was nice to be out there with himmaking his debut. Hopefully in years to come he goes on and has a really good career. I’m sure he’s someone who looks up to the experienced players in the dressing room, and it would be nice for him to say one day, ‘I made my debut batting with Adam’.” Lyth scored 804 Championship runs in 2019, including seven fifties Features but no century. Alongside Gary Ballance and Tom Kohler-Cadmore, he was amongst the top nine run-scorers in Division One. He also scored 201 runs in the early season Royal London one-day Cup and 379 in the Vitality Blast, posting five fifties in the two competitions combined. During the last winter Adam reiterated his desire to finish his career as a Yorkshire player by signing a two-year contract extension at Emerald Headingley and committed himself to wearing the White Rose until at least the end of 2022. In 2019 he went be- yond 10,000 first-class runs for Yorkshire and cur- rently sits on 10,674 for all teams, including England and the Lions. He has set his sights on reaching the 15,000-mark. Whitby-born Lyth debuted for Yorkshire in late 2006 and has gone on to make 393 appearances for the county across all three formats, scoring 16,419 runs and taking 57 wickets with his off-spinners.