Yorkshire Keep Hopes Alive With Double Success
Yorkshire’s hopes of progressing to the knock out stage of the Vitality Blast remain alive after a busy weekend of fixtures resulted in two wins from three games.
The Vertu Motors-backed side had slipped to defeat in the two matches the previous week when the competition resumed, making the home game with Durham vital in the quest to make it through the group stage.
Durham went in to bat first as they looked to cement their position in the top four of the northern group but the home side started strongly as Alex Lees was dismissed in the second over when stumped off the bowling of Dom Bess. Ollie Robinson then followed in the fourth over and by the end of the fifth, Durham were already three down after Graham Clark was caught for a quickfire 21.
Bas de Leede and Colin Ackermann followed soon afterwards to leave Durham on 40-5 in the eighth over – putting Yorkshire firmly in control of the tie.
Whilst the visitors then managed to halt the fall of wickets, runs were in short supply and heading into the 14th over, the score had yet to reach three figures.
Bess caught and bowled Ashton Turner with the final ball of the 14th over before Jafer Chohan – who had earlier dismissed Ackermann – removed Ben Raine and Ben Dwarshuis with the first two balls of the next over.
Michael Jones then went later in the over as Durham lost four wickets for one run, with Chohan then completing a five wicket haul when Nathan Sowter was stumped to dismiss Durham for 107.
Adam Lyth and Dawid Malan cruised to a 64 stand in nine overs in Yorkshire’s reply before the pair fell in consecutive overs but by that stage, the visitors were already in full control of the game.
Although James Wharton was third man out with the score on 95, Yorkshire were able to score a straightforward win by seven wickets ahead of the trip to Manchester to take on Lancashire.
Unfortunately, poor weather would prevent a ball being bowled as the match was abandoned, with Yorkshire then heading to New Road to face Worcestershire knowing the match had now taken on added importance.
Worcestershire batted first and solid performances from the likes of Brett D’Oliveira and Ehan Brookes helped them to reach a total of 205-6 in their 20 overs – a season high score that could have been bettered had Chohan not impressed with the ball again to take 4-30 from four overs.
That still left Yorkshire with a tough task however as they chased what would be their second highest win target in the competition – the previous best having been a successful chase of 208 against Durham.
Things didn’t look promising for Yorkshire in the early stages of the reply as, whilst Lyth and Malan put on 66 for the first wicket before Lyth fell for 22, the visitors were behind the run rate required at the half-way stage – reaching 74-1 by the end of the tenth compared to the 106-3 scored by their rivals.
Malan then took centre stage however as he started to hit out and when he was joined by Jordan Thompson with the score on 159-4, the game had started to swing.
Malan would end up unbeaten on 93 from 50 balls but it was Thompson’s 40 from 14 that proved to be crucial as Yorkshire grabbed victory by six wickets to leave qualification for the group stages possible going into the home game with Nottinghamshire this Friday.
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