Yorkshire's new double act rolls on

By Matt Somerford 

Adam Lyth and Alex Lees capped a summer in which they became county cricket’s most talked about double act by scooping thePCA Awards last night.

There has rarely been a moment when Yorkshire’s opening pair have been separated this summer.

Four century stands during the White Rose’s successful LV= County Championship campaign lays testament to that - they even stand next to each other in the slip cordon – while off the field the pair are close friends too.

Now, even after the season has ended, Lyth and Lees are still inseparable.

After Lyth was named PCA player of the year at an awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London, Lees promptly took home the young player award.

The accolades came less than two days after they collected the top gongs at the Cricket Writers’ Club awards.

With the pair also selected for theEngland Performance Programme’s winter trip to Sri Lanka, it is just as well they both get on.

“We have a good rapport off the field,” Lees told ecb.co.uk.

“We’re quite happy to go out for food with each other and socialise – I think that always helps – and we get on, on the pitch.

“We stand first and second slip and we open the batting.

“We spend a lot of time together, we enjoy each other’s success and we enjoy batting with each other.”

Yorkshire have been the beneficiaries of their blossoming partnership at the top of the order, with the 21-year-old Lees enjoying a profitable first full season for the White Rose.

“You always want to win things as a team and if you can play a big part in that (championship) success, then it’s obviously an added bonus,” Lees said.

“I’ve really thrived on that pressure this year with me and Adam (at the top of the order).

“We tried to set down foundations for the team and we’ve been lucky more often than not that we have put down the foundations for some good wins.

“It just makes it a little bit sweeter that me and Adam have contributed to being county champions.”

Lyth scored the most first-class runs in the country this summer and has been spoken about as a possible Test opener.

The 26-year-old is not getting carried away with such talk just yet.

England will not return to Test duties until April next year, when they travel to the Caribbean, and in between time Lyth will go away with the EPP before the likelihood of an England Lions call-up for their tour of South Africa.

“If I can do well and stack up some runs like I have this summer then there’s maybe a Test call around the corner,” he said.

“At this moment in time hopefully I can just keep scoring runs when the opportunity arises and you never know what can happen.”