Alex Lees column

LAST week ended with a rather frustrating draw against Sussex down at Arundel.

It was such a slow wicket and I've certainly never played on one like that before – certainly in a first-class game.

It was a very placid surface, very slow and more like a good league-standard wicket, and it was obviously very frustrating that we were not able to force the victory.

Both teams bowled very straight and it was hard to score quickly. By the end, it turned into quite a negative game of cricket, unfortunately. Maybe if the wicket was different, I'm sure we would have been pushing for a win, and maybe we would have come away with a victory.

Despite what I've just said, we did gain enough points to go joint top of the table, so there were positives to take from the game.

It's important to control what is in your grasp, and we can't control the pitch. If we just focus on what we're doing in each game, as long as we keep doing that, I'm sure we'll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

The thing we did very well during last year's title race was to focus on the next game as it came up and then move on to the next one. We're doing that again this year, and hopefully, by doing that, we can go one step further at the end of the season.

What happened last summer, when Durham beat us to the title, was disappointing for everyone at Yorkshire.

We're now a year on as a team, we've played a few more games together, which always helps, and people like myself and Jack Leaning, who has come into the side and done well, have got that bit more experience than last year.

We're now at the halfway stage of the Championship season, and we're well placed, joint top with Nottinghamshire, as we entered this week's match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. We're well placed to challenge at the end of the season.

As for myself, I've been hitting the ball ok so far this summer and got a couple of scores.

We're now coming into the back end of the season when wickets start to improve because of the better weather, so I will be really trying to kick on and have a good back end of the season and hopefully be part of a Championship-winning side.

We all know it is a tight top end of the table in Division One, and we try not to look too far ahead.

Any professional cricketer will tell you that if you try to look too far ahead, it usually leads to you taking your eye off the ball. That can often lead to you losing a session and losing the game.

It is because of that we're really only concentrating on the next game, trying to do well in that, and if we keep doing that we won't be far away.