A CONSCIOUS effort to clear the ropes in limited-overs cricket has been key to Jack Leaning's upturn in form for Yorkshire.

The middle-order batsman had struggled for runs this year.

Before Sunday's Royal London One-Day Cup century against Leicestershire at Grace Road – a career-best 131 not out – he had only reached 50 twice in all competitions, including once for his club side, York.

But the 22-year-old has shown positive signs during the last week, with a couple of powerful scores in the 30s in Twenty20 cricket.

Then, in the win over the Foxes, he hit his third ball for six and went on to share a record third-wicket partnership of 274 with Australian Travis Head as the Vikings posted 376-3.

A big part of training for limited-overs cricket these days is range hitting.

In layman's terms it is trying to whack the ball, thrown gently into the slot by a coach, as far as possible.

"It's something I've been working on and putting in a bit of practice," he admitted ahead of tomorrow's RL50 clash with Nottinghamshire at Scarborough.

"It's good fun more than anything to try and whack it as far as you can.

"When you're mishitting balls over the ropes in practice, it gives you massive confidence going into games.

"I've sometimes gone into my shell when out of form, which I guess is natural, but I've made a conscious effort to try and be overly positive, especially to spin because I feel like I can take it down.

"I've not felt too far away from a big score. It's just that I've kept finding ways of getting out.

"At least now with a score behind me, hopefully I can kick on and have a big last two months.

"I want to get back into that Championship team and contribute a few hundreds towards the back end."

Tomorrow's clash with Notts has the makings of a classic. Like Yorkshire, they are also scoring runs for fun.

In five 50-over matches this summer, the Trent Bridge side have posted scores of 445-8, 415-5 and 340-7, the latter against Derbyshire on Sunday.

They sit second in the table with an identical three wins, one defeat and a no result record to Yorkshire, who top the Northern Group courtesy of a superior net run-rate.

But, not surprisingly, Leaning is confident Yorkshire can maintain a run which has seen them win nine of their last 11 completed fixtures in Twenty20 and 50-over cricket, centred largely around batting first and building scoreboard pressure.

"The lads are full of confidence, and it's good that we're peaking at the right time in the season," he added.

"If we can keep this run going, there's no reason why we can't go a long way in both white-ball competitions.

"You can never be too complacent, but it's looking good for us, especially with the form we have shown in the last few weeks.

"Alex Lees has done well for us. He has won some tosses on some lovely pitches.

"It's nice to get first crack with the bat, and with our bowling line-up, we can really create pressure with a score on the board.

"Playing like we have, you can almost knock a team out of it at halfway."