Yorkshire Vikings v Derbyshire

Neil Whitaker reports from Headingley

DERBYSHIRE Falcons won their second match in three days as they beat the Yorkshire Vikings by nine wickets with three balls to spare at Headingley.

Wayne Madsen playing  in his 400th match for Derbyshire in all formats, the 14th Derbyshire Falcons player to reach that milestone, was unbeaten on 39 and shared a second wicket partnership of  69 with skipper Sham Masood. He said: “It’s great to get the win, and it’s pretty special to do it in my 400th game.” 

The Falcons won the toss and put the Vikings in a match reduced to eight overs per sided because of afternoon rain.  The Vikings lost their first wicket to the first ball of the match when Adam  Lyth drilled Hayden Kerr to  Masood at mid off.  Kerr finished the over as he started with a wicket when  Shadab Khan  helped him to stumper Brooke Guest.

Madsen added: “Those first couple of wickets in the first over from Kerr were really important.   I thought Yorkshire played some really good shots throughout their innings, but we had some little phases where we managed to just hold them up.

Batting second in those sorts of conditions, slippery ball, we played it pretty conservatively and were able to see it home. We have built confidence over the last couple of games. After getting so close on Friday night against  Birmingham, the last two games against Leicestershire and here have been really good. We’ll take a lot of confidence into Lancashire tomorrow.”

George Scrimshaw, who slipped trying to bowl his first delivery, should have had  a wicket when he finally bowled it when Dawid  Malan helped it round the corner but Kerr at short fine leg dropped a dolly.

Malan  nearly fell over but still managed to squeeze Conners’ yorker  to the square leg boundary to bring up his fifty off 22 balls with seven fours and two sixes.   As he did against the Leicestershire Foxes he was out the next ball after reaching fifty when he pulled Mark Watt to Conners running in from the long boundary.

After Malan’s departure the Vikings only hit three boundaries and one of those was a six from Will Fraine which took the Vikings score to 83 for three.  

The Falcons began their chase with 11 from the first over but in their second over they only scored three runs and they lost their first wicket in the third over when Luis Reece was run out. In their 19 ball partnership a run out was always on the cards as they hesitated and nearly collided. Masood  thumped Matt  Revis to deep square leg and set off for a single.  When he completed the first he turned for the second but stopped when he saw Jordan Thompson’s throw coming in and Reece was sold down the river. 

Masood drilled Thompson over the long on boundary for a six into the old Football stand, now the Howard stand. At the halfway stage the Falcons needed 40 to win, in the next over he thumped Adil Rashid into the north  east stand, at the end of that over they needed 27.

Madsen squeezed Harris Rauf over the point boundary for a six. With eight needed off the last over Madsen swept the first ball from Rashid over square leg  for a six.

Malan said: “Batting at number three is different every time, sometimes you can come in after the first ball like I did tonight or sometimes it’s  later in the innings.

It’s dissapointing to loose but I think we only need to win seven games to reach the quarter finals.  Some people say you have to win all your matches that’s wrong you need to peak at the right time. In a shortened format, as soon as it gets to 10 overs and below, the toss is so important. To lose the toss was not ideal because you want to be chasing.  I thought we got close enough to a good score. We probably needed another 10 or 15 to make them go a lot harder earlier. When the pressure is on to get 90 or 100, and you try to hit every ball for four or six, it can make you lose your shape a bit. That happens, it’s part and parcel of the game and is why it’s so much easier to chase. 

We haven’t played as well as we would have liked in these four games with the team we’ve had.  We need a couple of bowlers, the ones we’ve got are alright but they lack the experience.”

Before the match Yorkshire Vikings announced the signing of Dominic Drakes for the next four Vitality Blast games.

Drakes, an all-rounder from Barbados, will be available for the next four Vitality Blast games as a replacement for Shadab Khan, who will return to Pakistan for international duty alongside Rauf after tonight’s game.  Rauf is replaced in the squad by New Zealand international Finn Allen, who is set to debut for the Vikings on Friday.
 
Yorkshire CCC’s Interim Managing Director of Cricket Darren Gough said: “We are delighted to welcome Drakes  to Yorkshire for the next four T20 games and we may also look at playing him in the Championship game against Hampshire.

He’s a very talented young player having just arrived from the IPL where he was part of the winning Gujarat Titans squad. As a left-arm bowler and a destructive left-handed batter he offers another great option for our squad.”

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