Yorkshire v Durham One Day Cup at York July 31st

Neil Whitaker reports

    YORKSHIRE  beat Durham by seven  wickets with nine overs to spare  to go top of group B in front of a record crowd at York.

    They have now won four consecutive matches since they were beaten by Hampshire at Scarborough and apart from their victory at Glamorgan the other three have been relatively easy. Today was another good all round performance first with the ball and then with the bat.

    Seeing Yorkshire home James Wharton and Sam Whiteman who put on 97 for the fourth wicket in 11 overs.  Wharton made 68 his highest score so far  in this year’s competition and Whiteman hit his second fifty.

    Wharton drove Luke  Robinson straight to past the bowler for a four. Two balls later  he dug out Robinson to the point boundary.  On 22 he gave half a chance to Will Rhodes but it was a difficult low chance in his follow through.  He hit his highest score in this year’s competition and reached his fifty from 97 balls with six fours.

    Whiteman showed his class and his innings was one of his best this season. He went down the pitch to Shafiqullah Ghafari and drove him elegantly to the extra cover boundary and dabbed the next ball to the third man boundary.  He rocked back to George Drissell to late cut him to the third man boundary and drove the next ball to the long-on boundary. He reached his fifty from balls with five fours when he dabbed  former Yorkshire Rhodes to third man for a single.

    Yorkshire’s  chase of 165 got off to a shaky start losing both openers inside three overs.  Adam Lyth was late on his shot and was leg before to Luke Robinson.

    Will Bennison hit consecutive fours off Robinson: the first he flat batted him to long-on the next ball he drove to cover.  He had a slice of luck on 23 when he edged Stokes to  Kasey Aldridge who couldn’t take the low chance.

    With Wharton, Bennison added 66 with Bennison making 36, 35 more than he made on Wednesday.  The partnership was broken when Bennison went down the pitch to 

    Shafiqullah Ghafari and hit the ball against his boot and rolled back on to his stumps.

    Many of the 4851 crowd came to see former England captain Ben Stokes play expecting to see fireworks with the bat, but he disappointed, he did get a wicket with his fourth ball.  After he was hit for four by Will Luxton as the sun came out, Stokes got the next ball to rise at him taking the shoulder of his bat and Drissell at first slip did the rest.  

    In Stokes’ first Metro Bank  match hit 108  followed by 73 but he was brought down to earth with a golden duck against Glamorgan. 

    When  he came into bat Durham were struggling on 15 for three in the 10th over and when he played forward defensive shot after defensive shot Stokes looked in a confident  mood to get   a big knock.  But it was not to be. He tried a few attempts at the reverse sweep, all of them failed and it was the reverse sweep proved to be his downfall when he reversed swept Kuldeep Yadav to George Hill at point.

    Durham, who won the toss and batted were dismissed  11 balls shy of their 50 overs and at some  stages they looked like batting for 40 overs would be out of their reach.  Eight of their 48.1 overs were maidens. Rhodes who top scored on Wednesday with 148,  top scored again but with only 31 today.

    They   lost skipper Alex Lees in overcast conditions in complete  contrast to Wednesday, when he edged a drive off Hill.  Durham, who won the toss and batted, lost skipper Lees in overcast conditions in complete  contrast to Wednesday, when he edged a drive off Hill. Emilio Gay went down the pitch to Ben Coad had a wild swing and lost his middle stump.

    Three consecutive maidens in the power play led to the fall of their third wicket when Graham Clark tried to play Ben Cliff to leg but got a leading edge and Wharton took the catch at mid-off.

    Rhodes who added 29 in 13 overs with Stokes drove Lyth for a six over long-on.  He top edged a sweep of Bess and the ball went that high that it went behind the umpire at Dom Bees’end and Bess took a steepling catch.

    Ollie Robinson played a typical Robinson innings forcing the pace  and that was his downfall he drove Bess looking for a straight six instead he found Cliff on the long-boundary.

    Colin Ackerman drove Kuldeep to the extra cover boundary before he  was leg before to Kuldeep to one that was hitting his off stump.  

    Aldridge  drove Bess for a straight six.  He pulled Cliff to Whiteman on the mid-wicket boundary. Drissell  got an outside edge to a drive off Cliff and the ball went many a mile in the air and eventually Lyth ran in from mid-on to take the catch.

    Luke Robinson bludgeoned Coad to the long-on boundary. He clipped Coad off his legs to the long leg boundary.

    Durham made two changes from the team that beat Glamorgan on Wednesday Luke Robinson came in for James Minto and Drissell replaced former Yorkshire player Duanne Olivier while brought in Cliff for Jack White.

    Head coach Anthony McGarth said: “I think that the last two games, we’ve  been against two of the strongest sides in the group. We are pleased with the way that we approached the games and beat them both very comfortably.  Both our fielding and batting have been outstanding. We are learning how to chase targets down.

    I think Wharton needs a special mention,  the way he and Bennison set about their partnership showed a calmness to set up the victory.  Bennison had a disappointing start to the competition but his work in the nets has paid off, and he did well batting against Stokes. 

    Coad was outstanding and Bess’ captaincy has been outstanding. He has used Lyth so some me bowlers don’t have to bowl 20 overs. When there has been a partnership he has managed to engineer a wicket.”


   

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