Familiar pattern for Yorkshire CCC leaves their T20 hopes hanging by a thread

Three straight defeats, followed by six straight wins, followed by three straight defeats again.

By rights, we should now expect another six straight wins, but five would be enough to see Yorkshire win the T20 Blast if – and it’s a huge ‘if’ – they can somehow win their final two group games, followed by the quarter-final, semi-final and final.

Certainly, two wins from the last two group fixtures, against Durham at Chester-le-Street tonight and against Lancashire at Old Trafford the following Friday, would appear imperative to keep Yorkshire’s hopes alive. They lost this by four runs to Birmingham Bears, who extended their lead at the top of the North Group with an eighth win in 11.

On a muggy summer’s evening, the sort where insects stick to the skin as though attracted by magnet, Birmingham scored 180-7 after choosing to bat. Rob Yates, the opener, anchored with 66 from 51 balls (he was run out off the last ball of the innings in an act of self-sacrifice), Chris Benjamin hit 45 from 27 and Glenn Maxwell, once of this parish, cracked 21 from 10 with three sixes.

Yorkshire’s bowling was impressive at times, with Matty Fisher, David Wiese and Dom Bess economical, but the fielding, on occasions, was sloppy, with a number of misfields and missed opportunities.

After Yorkshire fell to 87-5 in the 12th over of the chase, Jordan Thompson and Matty Revis made a valiant effort to take them home, sharing 54 in 36 balls.

Both were caught in the deep by Jacob Bethell, Thompson quite unbelievably so when the fielder dived full-length at long-on to somehow take it in his left hand.

Still Yorkshire almost nicked it when Wiese, needing to hit four sixes off the final four balls of the game from Henry Brookes, managed three, with Brookes serving up a wide and a dot ball in between.

The dot ball itself was quite clearly a wide, leaving Yorkshire with cause to feel aggrieved as they closed on 176-8 and Birmingham, for their part, in the pattern business too; this was their fourth straight win after three straight defeats which, in turn, followed four straight wins.

Fisher was the first change that Yorkshire had made to their T20 line-up for six games, the pace bowler replacing Ben Mike.

He was unlucky not to strike early when Alex Davies top-edged to short third-man, Bess spilling the chance and the ball flying out of his hands like a bar of soap to the boundary.

Bess soon atoned, catching the same player in the same position off Revis’s first ball, the opening one of the fifth over, diving low to his right.

Fisher returned to concede just one run off the final over of the powerplay, a fine effort from the 25-year-old that left Birmingham 50-1.

Benjamin brought impetus with three boundaries in four balls off leg-spinner Jafer Chohan, followed by three in four balls off Revis as Birmingham reached 92-1 at halfway.

Benjamin fell in the 11th over, slapping Thompson to Wiese at mid-off, and after Maxwell pulled the next legitimate ball into the upper part of the East Stand, a huge hit to get off the mark first up, Thompson dropped him off his own bowling, thrusting out a right hand in an effort to snare a screamer.

Fisher closed out well from the Kirkstall Lane end, conceding three off his last over, but Chohan came under pressure for perhaps the first time in the tournament when Maxwell pulled and slog-swept him for six into the East Stand, as though there were a couple of Yorkshire fans sat there that he remembered from the old days that he was trying to decapitate.

Maxwell then fell in rather tame fashion, bowled by Revis attempting a reverse-hit.

Yates pulled Revis for six but was then at fault when making to come back for a second off Bess, Dan Mousely run out by James Wharton’s throw from deep mid-wicket.

Birmingham slipped to 157-5 when Ed Barnard - one ball after Jonny Tattersall missed a chance to stump him off Bess - slapped a full toss to cover, Bess conceding three off the 17th over before Wiese had Bethell caught by Wharton at deep point.

Adam Lyth was dropped off the sixth and seventh balls of the Yorkshire reply, both times by a diving Barnard at point, off Woakes and Brookes respectively.

Dawid Malan skied Maxwell to deep cover, and Wharton was turned around by a delivery from Woakes and held at slip.

Lyth’s luck ran out when he sliced spinner Mousley to short-third, and Yorkshire slid to 73-4 in the 11th when left-arm spinner Jake Lintott bowled Shan Masood.

Tattersall went lbw trying to play Mousley to leg, but Thompson and Revis carried the fight, Thompson pulling Lintott for successive sixes and Revis playing some classical strokes.

It all came down to 41 needed from the last three overs, but Woakes conceded just two from the first of them en route to 2-22, Mousley taking a career-best 4-28.