Chesterfield curse strikes again to leave Yorkshire in seventh hell

Yorkshire had lost their last five T20s at Queen’s Park, a sequence stretching back to 2015, and although they did win in the Championship there only last week, ending a 14-month run without a four-day triumph, it has been the antithesis of a happy hunting ground for them in the 20-over game.

So, would ‘The Curse of Chesterfield’ strike again, the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story that never quite made it, or would Yorkshire beat the six straight T20 victories they racked up en route to the final in 2012?

The answer, on a blustery, overcast day before a crowd of 5,000, was that the hoodoo would continue in the most horrific way, Yorkshire crashing to a 144-run defeat – the joint second-heaviest in the 20-year history of the tournament, after Warwickshire beat Worcestershire by that margin at Edgbaston last summer and Somerset beat Derbyshire themselves by 191 runs in last season’s quarter-final in Taunton.

Yorkshire’s previous worst defeat by a runs margin was 110 against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 2005, and it was in the Roses fixture at Headingley just a few days before that when Matthew Hoggard returned Yorkshire’s most expensive T20 analysis in an otherwise storied summer for himself personally.

Eighteen years on, Hoggard’s unwanted record finally fell as his 2-65 was surpassed by Ben Mike’s 1-74, which included 31 runs (five sixes and a single) in the last over of the innings. Mike’s was the sixth-most expensive T20 analysis in the world (ironically, a Derbyshire bowler in this match, leg-spinner Mattie McKiernan, holds the record with 0-82 in last year’s ill-starred quarter-final). Incredibly, Yorkshire did not even manage as many runs as Mike conceded as they were bowled out for 68 with 8.4 overs of their innings left, beating their previous lowest T20 score of 81 against Birmingham at Edgbaston two years ago.

Earlier, Derbyshire’s 212-4 was their third-highest T20 total behind the 222-5 they made against Yorkshire at Leeds in 2010, and also against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 2017. Leus du Plooy, their captain, hit an unbeaten 66 from 32 balls with five sixes, Haider Ali 59 from 31 with three sixes, and Brooke Guest an undefeated 39 from 18, also with three sixes.

Amid the mayhem, Matty Revis and David Wiese both conceded less than 30 runs, Revis going for just five off his first two overs, but Jordan Thompson was hit for 49 while Mike’s last two overs went for 53.

For Yorkshire, just about the only good news was that matters began, as they invariably do, with captain Shan Masood winning the toss. So remarkable is Masood’s record in this respect - 11 successful tosses in 12 attempts now - that he is presumably pestered by team-mates on a constant basis for all manner of sporting tips, lottery predictions and stock market insights, not that anyone could foresee this calamity coming.

After inserting his former club, Masood would have been pleased as Derbyshire spluttered to a powerplay score of 48-2. When Yorkshire then got the key wicket of Wayne Madsen, the second-highest run-scorer in this year’s Blast behind their own Dawid Malan, it left the home team 49-3 in the seventh over and apparently struggling.

Madsen tucked Revis out to mid-wicket where Thompson swooped in a flash, throwing down the stumps as the batsman sought a single to get off the mark.

After nine overs, Derbyshire were 59-3, but Haider and du Plooy, who put on a record fifth-wicket partnership against Yorkshire in first-class cricket of 277 in the Championship game, stepped on the gas to add 70 in eight overs exactly.

Haider provided most of the muscle, shovelling Mike over the point boundary, Revis over the long-off rope and, after reaching a 38-ball fifty, Thompson into the crowd beyond mid-wicket.

Haider fell to Thompson’s next ball attempting a repeat, Jafer Chohan – who was not called on to bowl – taking a terrific diving catch on the square-leg boundary, a moment of pure brilliance.

Du Plooy, not fluent to start with, ripped into Mike towards the end, launching the first three balls of the final over for six before pushing a single which allowed Guest to strike the last two deliveries over the rope. The pair shared an unbroken 93 from just 34 balls.

Yorkshire lost wickets in each of the opening four overs, tumbling to 20-5 having been 7-4. It was 37-7 at the end of the seventh, most wickets falling to desperate skied shots amid scoreboard pressure, before a minor recovery to 63-9, shortly after which rain triggered an hour’s delay.

Five balls later the fat lady was singing, Revis holing out on the mid-wicket boundary as Yorkshire dropped from second to fourth in the table and saw their net run-rate fall from 0.29 to -0.46.