Lancashire v Yorkshire May 27-30

Lancashire v Yorkshire May 27-30 at Old Trafford

Neil Whitaker reports

LESS than a fortnight ago Yorkshire’s wicket keeper 19 year old Harry Duke pulled his first ball in Championship cricket from Glamorgan’s Michael Nesser to Joe Cooke at mid wicket for a first ball duck, in his first Roses match he top scored with 52.

He said: “It’s an incredible feeling to come off the field after my first Roses championship match with a fifty to my name, I’ll take that any day. I knew it was going to be a tough challenge but I got through my first ball today. Once I got in I thought I would get better especially at batting with Steven Patterson.

Adam Lyth told me to take my time, but the nerves were still with me.  When I bat I am always looking to score, picking the right balls to score.  The pitch got easier when it dried out.  After our innings we said forget the score and bowl like we can.”

Duke, who played for  England in the 2020 under 19 World cup in South Africa, came into bat Yorkshire were 21 for five and were in danger of achieving their lowest first innings total at Emirates Old Trafford.

He grew in confidence as his innings progressed he hit consecutive boundaries off Luke Wood.  First he drove Wood to the cover boundary to take him to 20 and pulled the next ball to the mid wicket boundary.  Then he became one of the four Yorkshire players to be dropped  and one of the two to be dropped twice.

On 29 he top edged a swep off leg spinner Matt Parkinson down the leg side but wicket keeper Dane Vilas couldn’t hold on to the chance.  But that drop was put to the  back of his mind as he and Captain 
Patterson defied the Lancashire bowlers.  Patterson as usual gave the bowlers the idea that they could get him out every ball but he managed to get his bat on the ball or even blocked the ball with his pad.  He even slashed Lancashire’s speed merchant Saqib  Mahmood to the third man boundary but Saqib had his revenge when hit Patterson on his helmet.

Duke was given his second life on 49.  Again it was off Parkinson,when Duke glanced him off the full face of his bat to Keaton Jennings at leg slip who dropped the chance.  His fifty  came from 110 balls with six fours.

The youngster dominated the partnership with his captain, when their  century partnership came up off 118 balls Patterson had only  scored nine  of them.  Lancashire skipper kept Vilas kept pulling the bowlers out of the attack to break up the partnership.  Patterson became a little more confident and even flat batted Wood to the long on boundary.

The partnership was broken when Patterson tried to sweep a full toss from Parkinson but missed it and was bowled.  Patterson and Duke added 77 in 26 overs and had given the Yorkshire bowlers a score they could bowl at.  Five balls after losing Patterson, Duke was back in the hutch.  He tried to pull Tom Bailey but gloved him to Vilas.

After 617 Lancashire days welcomed fans back into the Emirates Old Trafford and what a match to let the fans in the 221st Championship Roses match.  For the sixth match out of seven Patterson won the toss. He decided to bat and by half past eleven he must have wished he’d put Lancashire into bat as the Yorkshire batsmen struggled against the pace of Saqib and Bailey to get the ball away.

Yorkshire came into the match  a batter light, with Dominic Bess batting at number six, lost their first wicket in the fifth when Adam Lyth sliced a drive off Bailey and Danny Lamb in the gully took a one handed catch above his head.

Will Fraine faced 14 balls before he edged a beauty  from Saqib and was out for a duck.  Yorkshire were now two down and hadn’t reached double figures in the eighth over.

Tom Kohler-Cadmore was dropped before he had scored when he  edged Saqib to Liam Livingstone at second slip who spilled the low chance moving to his right.  Then he was involved in Yorkshire losing their third wicket but the blame has to lie with non striker Harry Brook.  Kohler-Cadmore pushed Bailey out to the covers and set off for a single while at the bowler's end Brook was static.  Alex  Davies at short extra cover had the simple job of losing the ball in to run Brook out for the second duck of the innings.

Five balls later Yorkshire lost another wicket when George Hill edged Bailey with soft hands but without moving his feet to give  Livingstone at second slip an easy catch.

Kohler-Cadmore was dropped for the second time, on nine he top edged Bailey to Luke Wells at first slip who couldn’t hold on to the head height chance.  After giving Kohler-Cadmore two lives they eventually got rid of him when Lamb squared him up and was leg before.

The gamble of batting Bess at six failed when he cut Wood to Lamb at gully.  Batting at number eight Jordan  Thompson must have been the most surprised person in the ground to be batting before lunch on the first day.  He added 19 with Duke  before he fended off a short ball from Wood into the hands of Jennings at short leg who had just been brought in.

After Patterson’s and Dukes departures Yorkshire needed a few big hits to get them to two hundred and Duanne Olivier and Ben Coad did their best but they failed by 41 runs.  Olivier uppercut Saqib over third man and despite Lamb’s efforts he couldn’t take the catch but he broke his sunglasses. In Saqib’s next over Coad upper cut him for a six over third man.

Lamb was brought back into the attack and he struck with his first ball when Olivier top edged a slash and Wells at slip took a great catch tumbling to his left.

Compared to Yorkshire’s pedestrian start Lancashire’s was full throttle as Jennings and Davies brought up the 50 in 14 overs.  Davies reached his fourth fifty of the season when guided Patterson to third man for a couple.  After reaching 50 he failed again to hit a century when he strangled down the leg side off Patterson.
Day 3

LANCASHIRE ended the second day with a lead of 191 with four first innings wickets left.

Former England opener Keaton  Jennings hit his  fourth century for Lancashire but his first this season, his other three were in 2018.

Jennings said: “It was really good fun out there and to score my first hundred in a Roses match has put us in a really good position. Last night I felt mentally drained but I got through those first two hours to get us in a good position.

Tomorrow morning if we can we will push the game forward and put us in a position to win the game.  Hopefully we can create some pressure with the new ball and we’ve got two guys who can turn the ball both ways and attack them out of the rough.”

He shared a  second wicket stand of 175 in 66 overs with Luke Wells who hit his highest score for Lancashire of 60.  The pair started the day with the attitude of grinding the Yorkshire bowlers into the dirt.  It was real attritional stuff from the pair, a reminder of Roses matches in the 1920’s and 30’s where it was unheard of a boundary being hit in a morning session.  In today’s morning session Lancashire added 65 in 31 overs, Jennings took his overnight score to 33 and Wells added 20.

After lunch the pair came out with a different mind set. In the first over after lunch Jennings cut Ben Coad beautifully to the point boundary.  He drove Dom Bess through extra cover for a three to take him past his previous best score of the season.  Then he fiercely drove Jordan Thomson to the extra cover boundary for one of his seven  to bring up his fifty which came from 177 balls

He even pulled Duanne Olivier to the fine leg boundary where Thompson went for the catch but the ball died on him and the ball bounced to the boundary.  Jennings was now in the mood for scoring a big century; he reversed swept Bess to the third man boundary.  Then drilled Thompson to the long off boundary to bring up his century off 253 balls including 11 fours.  Both counties have now scored 117 centuries Roses matches.

Just when it looked like both Jennings and Wells would get a record breaking partnership Jennings pushed forward at Coad took his edge to Tom Kohler-Cadmore for a comfortable catch at first slip.  The only time that Lancashire had looked like losing a wicket was early in  the morning when Wells drove Olivier to substitute Matthew Fisher and set off for a single but Wells was sent back by Jennings and Wells beat Fisher’s direct hit.
 
Wells pulled Bess with complete content to the square leg boundary to bring up the fifty partnership with Jennings from 168 balls. He drove Thompson to the extra cover boundary with pure timing not power  for the shot of the morning.

He danced down the wicket to Bess and drove him to cover boundary to take Lancashire into the lead. Later he went down the pitch to Bess and lofted him to the long off boundary.

Wells pulled a long hop from Bess to the mid wicket boundary for his first fifty for Lancashire from 184 balls with seven fours.  A cover drive for four from Wells off Thompson brought up the 150 partnership off 354 balls. To compensate Thompson’s next ball  was wayward outside the leg stump and went for four byes,

In the first five  overs with the new ball Jennings and Wells added 32.  Four balls after Jennings was dismissed Wells joined him in the hutch.  He tried to pull his bat out of the way but couldn’t and Kohler-Canmore at first slip took a tumbling catch to his right.  Thompson got his second wicket of the innings four overs later when Liam Livingstone top edged a pull off  Thompson to Olivier at mid on.

Yorkshire captain Steven Patterson said: “It was an horrendous start for us (with the bat). But fair play to them, they’ve played good cricket throughout and have not let us back in the game. We now find ourselves right up against it.
I thought Jennings and Wells showed us, in a sense, how to bat on a good surface. When you get the opportunity, make it count.  They didn’t score at a particularly quick rate at any stage, but they made it hard work for us and ground us down.  I can’t question the lads character and effort today. It’s a good surface and hard to get wickets on. 

“To go at two and a half an over for the first 120 overs is a good effort and a testament to the bowlers skills. But, at the end of the day, we can’t keep expecting the bowlers to pull us out of trouble.”

After tea it looked like Lancashire were going for maximum batting points then Dane Vilas and Josh Bohannon started to block then out of nowhere Vilas went down the wicket to Bess and launched him straight to the changing rooms.  In Bess’ next over  Bohannon thought anything you can do, I can do better and repeated the shot with the same result.

Kohler-Cadmore  took his third catch of the innings when Vilas went for a big pull off Coad but top edged it and Kohler-Cadmore won the race with stumper Harry  Duke to take the catch in the short fine leg area.

Despite a couple of quick fours kept alive the dream of reaching 350 but suddenly they gave up and restricted Yorkshire to just one bowling point. Bohannon kept finding  the boundary from whichever bowler he faced but with their on 181 he lost his third partner when Luke Wood tickled Thompson to Duke.

Day 4

LANCASHIRE won their first Roses match at Emirates Old Trafford since 200 by an innings and 79 runs their last Roses victory by an innings at Emirates Old Trafford was in 1972.

With 28 minutes left to play Dominic Bess pushed forward at  Matt Parkinson and edged him to Liam Livingstone who took a low catch at slip. The Lancashire players raced off in celebration but it took an age for umpire Steve O’Shaughnessy to give him out.  Yorkshire had lost three wickets in 12 balls without adding a run.

Saqib Mahmood took five for his first championship five wicket haul for Lancashire and finished with five for 47 and Parkinson took three for 61.It’s possibly the best feeling I’ve had on a cricket field.  

Saqib said:“It was nice. I’ve had a few four-fors and I was thinking it wasn’t going to come!  To do it in a Roses game makes it that extra special.  We said at tea we’ve been in this position before, grafting for wickets right at the end (of a game). And the boys just stuck at it.  But Glenn Chappel, Lancashire coach said, ‘leave everything out there.’ And it was nice doing it at the end of the match.  But it was a great team effort. Everyone stuck to their team roles and did what was asked of them.  I had more of an attacking role and it was nice that it paid off.  

It helped having a crowd in. I was really tired going into that last spell and you pick up a wicket and the crowd really gets behind you and all of a sudden that tiredness is gone and it feels a little bit better when that happens right at the end. The weather obviously helps-if it was cold I’m not sure I could have gone again!  

My throat’s gone!”  

Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale said: “I am as disappointed as the lads and I feel for the members.  I would like to apologise to our members who were allowed in a ground for the first time and I apologise for the way we performed on the first day. We’ve had meetings about how we can get it right but a lot of teams would have faded away and lost in two days.  But it’s still only one game that we’ve lost and I still think that it’s still achievable for us to win the group.  We came into the game with an inexperienced batting line up and any team would find it difficult being 20 for six.

We are absolutely gutted but after the first day we showed a lot of character.  They got a big score but they didn’t do it quickly so I thought we had a chance of saving it. But the way we batted on the first day was the more gutting. I thought Harry Duke showed a lot of grit to produce his knock in the first innings and today.”

Yorkshire needing to at the whole day to get a draw lost their first wicket of the day in the fifth over when Will  Fraine who had been beaten both ways by Saqib and was eventually beaten by the pace of Saqib and lost his middle stump which was sent cartwheeling out of the ground without adding Fraine to his overnight score.

In Saqib’s next over he beat Yorkshire captain Steve Patterson with two that left him and then got one to come back at the Yorkshire captain and knocked his off stump out of the ground.

After 29 balls George  Hill got off the mark when he turned Danny Lamb off his legs for a single but his partnership with Harry  Brook showed what the rest of the Yorkshire team needed to do.

After his duck in the first innings his partner  Brook batted well; he was always on the front foot against Parkinson and the other bowlers looking to score.  He sedately turned Parkinson to the mid wicket boundary for a rare boundary on the fourth morning.  In the morning session Yorkshire added 59 runs in 32 overs.

Lancashire took the new ball seven balls after lunch and with the third ball Hill got a little inside edge and was bowled. With Brook they defied the Lancashire bowlers for 27 overs adding 59.

After eight overs with the new ball Parkinson was brought back into the attack this time at the Statham end after bowling from the James Anderson end in the morning

Brook cut Lamb through point for three to bring up his fifth  fifty of the season off 105 balls with five fours.Lancashire needed to get rid off Brook quickly and they did.  After adding only two more runs he got too far over to his off stump to Parkinson who hit him the boot and was leg before.  Brook was so disappointed that his 159 minute stay at the crease ended in that way that it took him an age to walk back to the hutch.

Bess on 17 edged a drive off Parkinson but Livingstone at couldn’t hold on to the comfortable catch in his mid driff with Yorkshire on 185 for six with 45 overs left

39 balls and 48 minutes  for Duke to get off the mark when he pulled Livingstone to the square leg boundary.  After tea Lancashire persisted with Luke Wood at the Statham end, nearing the end of his spell he got one to come back in  him after the previous had left him thinking it was going to be another outswinger Duke shouldered arms and was bowled. He had defied the Lancashire bowlers for 162  minutes adding 58  for the seventh wicket.

With 10 overs left in the Saqib was brought back into the attack and struck with his fifth when Jordan Thompson feathered him to Vilas. In his next over Ben Coad was given out caught behind and  even Saqib didn’t appeal but those behind the wickets were sure they heard an edge. Gale was not impressed with that decision.

Lancashire took 22 points from the game and 24 points clear of second place Yorkshire in group 3

FULL SCORECARD