'Lads deserved to get to final,' says Yorkshire coach McGrath

Anthony McGrath felt his Yorkshire players deserved to reach the final of the One-Day Cup.

- by Chris Waters

Reflecting on their competition as a whole, which ended in semifinal heartbreak against Hampshire on Sunday, the head coach said: “I’m just disappointed for the lads.

“They played really well and were desperate to continue that in the semifinal.

“They deserved to get to the final. To win seven out of eight group games was an incredible feat.”

McGrath acknowledged Hampshire’s superiority in Scarborough, where the visitors won by 18 runs on the DLS method to set up a final against Worcestershire at Trent Bridge on Saturday September 20.

He said that if his side keeps playing as they did for most of the tournament, suffering only one defeat in the group stage to Somerset at York, a shot at glory will come again.

“It’s not like we scraped through to the semifinal and had a lot of luck,” said McGrath, whose team finished top of Group B to advance directly to the semis.

“We actually dominated a lot of games, we won comfortably a lot of games.

“So, for me, that’s a big positive which we can take forward, not just in white-ball cricket but as a club,” he said.

“As I said to the lads, if we keep playing like that then we're going to be in the latter stages of competitions more often.”

Taking those last vital steps remains Yorkshire’s great challenge.