{"id":529784,"date":"2026-04-14T05:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529784\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T05:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:21:07","slug":"we-were-well-below-our-standard-mcgrath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529784\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We were well below our standard&#8221; &#8211; McGrath"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28748\" class=\"wp-image-28748\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AM2_0274-300x202.jpg.webp.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"806\" height=\"543\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-28748\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. Anthony McGrath spoke this afternoon about Yorkshire\u2019s defeat to Hampshire at Headingley.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Anthony McGrath pulled no punches in his assessment of Yorkshire\u2019s start to the new season after defeat against Hampshire at Headingley today.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach McGrath said there were \u201cworrying signs\u201d from last week\u2019s performance in their draw against Glamorgan at Cardiff, which preceded a 241-run defeat here.<\/p>\n<p>The former England all-rounder and Yorkshire captain spoke to the media after defeat was confirmed this afternoon, the county bowled out in their second innings for 211 chasing 426.<\/p>\n<p>He also confirmed Joe Root\u2019s availability for the county\u2019s next Rothesay County Championship match against Sussex here, starting a week on Friday, whilst giving a positive update on the fitness of captain Jonny Bairstow.<\/p>\n<p>McGrath also spoke about the fitness of seamers Jhye Richardson and Jack White, who were subbed out of this game because of food poisoning on days two and three respectively.<\/p>\n<p>They will both be available to face Sussex. Though, as things stand, they are \u201cnot good\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>McGrath said: \u201cThere were warning signs last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spoke down at Glamorgan about how we played there \u2013 a few worrying signs with the bat, a few with the ball. Unfortunately, they\u2019ve continued this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were well below our standard, and we\u2019re just not getting it right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating from the optimism of pre-season and how we finished last year. The work we\u2019ve put in has just not transformed onto the pitch. With bat and ball we\u2019re way, way short, which is very, very disappointing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe week off probably comes at a good time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe good news is we have a bit of squad depth to come in and make some changes, which we will do, but we\u2019ve got to get it right pretty quick as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McGrath continued: \u201cIf I were a supporter watching that, I\u2019d be thinking, \u2018What the hell have these guys been doing for the last six months because it looks like we\u2019ve just forgotten how to play?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s obviously not the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe showed a little bit of resolve today. But we\u2019ve got to make sure that when we start against Sussex these two performances don\u2019t happen again for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s nothing in our pre-season we can use as any kind of excuse or reason for those performances. We\u2019ve just not been at the races for whatever reason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s nothing to do with preparation or practice. So it\u2019s got to be the personnel, the balance of the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, that\u2019s on myself and the leadership group who pick the team. We\u2019ve got to make sure we get that right for the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Root is inked in to play against Sussex and Bairstow pretty much the same after missing this one with a fractured right thumb.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s got another 10 days or so, so I think he\u2019ll be absolutely fine,\u201d said McGrath. \u201cHe\u2019s not hit any balls or caught any balls yet, but it\u2019s healing nicely. I\u2019d be amazed if he wasn\u2019t (fit to face Sussex).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Richardson and White, McGrath said: \u201cThey\u2019re not good, really.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not quite sure how it\u2019s happened, but they\u2019ve both had food poisoning. Both ate separately the night before, but Jhye\u2019s came on a little bit quicker.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had to send him home, and then Jack tried, came back the next morning, but he was sick and was up all night again yesterday. Hopefully it won\u2019t be longer than a couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And going back to this week\u2019s game, McGrath added: \u201cLook, we\u2019ve got to give credit to Hampshire as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought Kyle Abbott was fantastic. We all know how good a bowler he is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Picture by Allan McKenzie\/SWPix.com. Anthony McGrath spoke this afternoon about Yorkshire\u2019s defeat to Hampshire at Headingley.\u00a0 Anthony McGrath&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-529784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}