Yorkshire's first-class season is in danger of unravelling following a run of four defeats in their last five LV Division One matches, with the Tykes bounced into the drop zone following their horror 10-wicket loss at Hampshire last week.

But Moxon sent his men out to face Roses rivals Lancashire at Old Trafford today with a call for them to dig deep and avoid the spasmodic implosions – especially with the bat – which are threatening to wreck their season. Yorkshire were well placed at 45-0 in their second innings at Southampton before losing five wickets for a paltry nine runs.

They were eventually bowled out for a derisory 107 at the Rose Bowl, having previously suffered collapses against Nottinghamshire and Durham.
The slump has all the hallmarks of last season, when they won just one of their final 12 first-class matches to drop out of the championship reckoning.

Acknowledging that his troops are in the thick of a survival fight, Moxon said: "Definitely, but it's still pretty tight and one win can take us up a few places.

"We're still confident we can finish pretty high in the table.
"We just need to stop these half-hour periods of play which are costing us.

"I've been saying it for a while and it's so frustrating it keeps happening.

"We can't maintain a good performance for the whole match, particularly with the bat. We're suffering mini collapses and sometimes they are becoming major collapses.

"Anyone is at their most vulnerable when they first go in. We need to do the basics well and be sharp from the off and show some determination to get ourselves in.

"We have done this at times this season. But unfortunately, pretty much other than the Surrey game, we haven't done it in four of the last five (first-class) games."

He added: "The frustrating thing is there has been no lack of effort from the team.

"The attitude and commitment is fine; we just need to display our skills throughout the whole game and not parts of it. That's the challenge.

"I don't think it's a case of any of our top five not getting runs – they have.

"You look at the runs we are scoring individually and it's not too bad. What we've got to do is score runs together, collectively.

"Players are getting starts to 20 and 30 and not turning them into big hundreds. If we start doing that, we'll be fine.

"We need to be more ruthless when we are on top.

"The Hampshire game was desperately disappointing.

"We'd have had a really good chance of winning if we'd batted anything like we know we can do in the second innings, but we let it slip."