Captain Andrew Gale is confident his Yorkshire team will learn from some tough experiences this term to become a much stronger unit in next season’s Friends Provident Twenty20 competition.

Gale’s men travel to Edgbaston to face Warwickshire tonight looking for the first of three wins he believes are needed to qualify for the quarter-finals.

The White Rose county have been the model of inconsistency in their 13 North Division matches so far, playing some exceptional cricket in their five wins, yet throwing in the odd period of kamikaze cricket to damage their record.

Gale said: “I think we’ve probably been a strike bowler light. We’ve also missed David Wainwright in the spin department. He’s had injuries, and we’ve missed his reliability.

“Somebody like Steve Patterson hasn’t got a lot of experience in Twenty20 cricket. This has been his first year.

“To throw him into bowling in the first six and at the death in every game has been tough on him. Somebody like Azeem Rafiq has got a little bit of exposure at times as well.

“The guys have still learnt fast though. I thought it was going to be a long tournament when we went for 200 in our first two games, but we’ve come back from that well as it’s gone on.

“We’ll definitely be better for the experience next year because we have shown that we can play some great cricket.

“It’s just that we’ve maybe been a little bit unlucky in a couple of the other games, like against Northants at home when we were done by the Duckworth Lewis system (for rain-affected games).”

It is still possible Ajmal Shahzad could be the strike bowler Gale is looking for at Edgbaston tonight.

The pace-man suffered a suspected hamstring injury during England’s one-day international win against Bangladesh at Edgbaston on Monday, in which club-mate Tim Bresnan also played, but an update is expected from the ECB at some point today.

Gale was not too hopeful yesterday, but said: “Fingers crossed, we’ll have Ajmal and Brezzy available for Chelmsford next week (County Championship match).

“To have them for that would be important because it’s a game I think we can win.

“Essex are there to be beaten. It would be good to have them both available because they are match-winners on their day.”

Another man who Gale is desperate to have fighting fit for next Tuesday’s four-day match is Anthony McGrath, who will not play in the last three 20-over matches due to a recurrence of the thumb injury which forced him out of the home fixture against Warwickshire a week last Sunday.

But Wainwright is set to make his first 20-over appearance of the season after coming into the squad in place of Rafiq.

Wainwright has been struggling with a knee injury and loss of form, but is back in the reckoning.

Rafiq and county colleague Joe Root link up with the England under-19s squad for their two-match Test series against Sri Lanka on Friday.