Yorkshire director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon believes his side must improve their batting if they are to have any chance of qualifying.

The White Rose have lost their last three games, with their most recent against Gloucestershire and Surrey involving all-too-familiar batting collapses – a regular occurrence for the county over the last two seasons in both one-day and four-day cricket.

He said: “All I want from our batsmen is for them to show some positive intent, even in defence. If we are doing that, then we will be fine. We can’t be tentative.

“When people aren’t scoring runs freely, the first thing you do is become a little bit tentative. We have got to put that to the back of our minds.

“Three wins would get us safe.

But to do that we have got to get back to batting as a unit. The bottom line is; we are capable of winning our last three matches.”

Moxon and captain Anthony McGrath, the county’s form batsman, decided to go with an extra bowler in David Wainwright at Bristol because of the new innovation of a batting powerplay.

“Until we start getting partnerships with the bat, we are going to be struggling,” said Mc- Grath.

Michael Vaughan’s hamstring twinge was being reassessed yesterday, as was McGrath’s minor back problem. It could be that left-hander Adam Lyth comes into the side today for his first game of the season to beef up the top order.

Reserve wicketkeeper Simon Guy, who has been in good form with both the bat and gloves, will continue to deputise for hand injury victim Gerard Brophy today.