A.J. Tye not getting carried away after helping Yorkshire CCC to the brink of best-ever Blast start
“SHOT boy!”
That was the chat between A.J. Tye and Hasan Ali when they took down Derbyshire at Headingley on Sunday.
They came together with Yorkshire wanting 56 to win from 27 balls with two wickets left.
Cometh the hour, cometh the new men.
“We were just like, ‘Let’s go hit some shots,’” said Tye. “And if one of us hit a good shot, it was, ‘Shot boy!’”
“We just counted down the runs. We’re both pretty experienced cricketers and, yeah, it worked out good.”
Yorkshire won with four balls left, Tye striking 32 from 13 deliveries with two sixes and four fours, Hasan clubbing 31 from 12 balls with three sixes and two fours.
Hasan even did a “mic drop” with his bat after scoring the winning run. Move over Joe Root and Virat Kohli.
“One hundred per cent we thought we could win it,” Tye added. “Doesn’t matter what position we’re in, we know that we can win with bat or ball.
“The other guys set it up, and then we just got on a roll and ‘Hass’ played some unbelievable shots.
"It took a partnership to win it; it wasn’t just me.”
As the dust settles on that triumph, one that proved that T20 games can be won these days from practically any position, hopes have risen that Yorkshire might mount a good challenge this year.
Two wins from two - something that they have surprisingly done only once before, in 2015 - has got the tournament off to the best possible start for them; another win at Durham tonight (Friday) would represent their best-ever start to a Blast season, indeed.
For Tye, who has been there and done it on the T20 scene, having taken 345 wickets in 251 games around the world, it is important not to get carried away.
Yorkshire’s fans are unlikely to do that anyway given the club’s dismal record in the competition but the sentiment is sensible with 10 group games left.
“It’s a good start, but we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” stressed Tye.
“We've still got a lot of games to play and a lot of good opposition.
“We've just got to keep building and doing what we can, taking it game by game and seeing where that takes us.
“Winning a game that we probably shouldn’t have won will only hold us in good stead in terms of the belief and attitude of the group, because we know that if we find ourselves behind again in a situation we can still win games.”
The match against Durham at Chester-le-Street will be a homecoming for Tye, the Australian pace bowler who joined Yorkshire in January on a two-year T20 deal as a domestic player (his father is from Middlesbrough and his mother from Essex).
The 39-year-old played 10 T20s for Durham in 2022, taking 21 wickets at 14.76, and also spent five seasons playing club cricket for Chester-le-Street between 2007 and 2012.
“It should be a good battle,” he added, with Durham having also won their first two matches.
“I know quite a few of the boys quite well and also Ryan Campbell (the Durham head coach).
“I’ve come across him from time to time in WA (Western Australia), and they’ve got a very dangerous batting line-up with the likes of David Bedingham and Alex Lees, Graham Clark and Ollie Robinson. It’ll be a good test.”
Tye is keen to improve on his efforts with the ball, with figures of 2-91 in his eight overs so far. Twenty-four of those came in the final over of Derbyshire’s innings on Sunday.
“It probably wasn’t the best way to introduce myself to the Yorkshire fans with the ball,” he admitted. “That last over wasn’t quite executed well.
“But this game is all about contributing, and thankfully I was able to come back out and contribute with the bat.
“If I can just sort that bowling out a little bit, it would be pretty good.”
The early signs are certainly encouraging for Yorkshire. They have all bases covered and some multi-talented players.
“It's not going to be the same guy standing up each time in every single game,” said Tye.
“We've got a squad where we know that someone will stand up on any given day.
“We saw it with Jonny (Bairstow) and ‘Wharts’ (James Wharton) the other day against Notts, and ‘Lythy’ (Adam Lyth) got us off to a good start last game.
“Moeen (Ali) stood up as well (with his first half-century for Yorkshire), and then me and ‘Hass’ just finished the job.”
Yorkshire have named a 13-man squad for the Durham match.
Faheem Ashraf, the new Pakistan overseas signing, is set to debut in place of George Hill.
Yorkshire (from): Hasan Ali, Moeen Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Jonny Bairstow (captain), Dom Bess, Jafer Chohan, Will Luxton, Adam Lyth, Dan Moriarty, Matty Revis, A.J. Tye, Yash Vagadia, James Wharton.