Dawid Malan tunes up for T20 Blast with sparkling innings for Yorkshire CCC
A FEW days from now we will be into the crash, bang, wallop of the T20 Blast.
Dawid Malan batted as though he’d got his dates mixed up in a blistering innings at Headingley on Saturday, taking the fight to the Nottinghamshire attack in a memorable exhibition of power and timing.
Malan, the newly appointed Yorkshire T20 captain, struck 64 runs from 45 balls with eight fours and four sixes, a performance out of keeping with the rest of the contest and the challenging conditions.
He hadn’t picked up a bat in anger after three games out with a groin injury but you wouldn’t have known it from the way that he played, top-scoring as Yorkshire were dismissed for 159 in reply to Nottinghamshire’s 228, the visitors extending that lead to 296 as they reached 227-3 at stumps on day two.
On a cloudy day with the floodlights on throughout, Malan came to the crease in the fourth over of the morning after James Wharton edged Dillon Pennington to first slip to leave Yorkshire 15-3.
Malan was soon into his stride, cover-driving Pennington for four, punching him to the mid-wicket boundary and then driving him on the up for another offside four before picking him up for a leg-side six.
Jack White, the nightwatchman, creamed three fours off Mohammad Abbas and added 37 with Malan in 35 balls before edging Pennington to second slip.
Malan looked fortunate to survive an lbw shout from Pennington when he had 26 - height perhaps saving him to a ball that nipped back - but he did not let that close shave bother him as he continued to play aggressively, taking 29 from two Lyndon James’ overs that included two more leg-side sixes, the latter carrying him to a 34-ball fifty.
After Harry Duke edged behind a fine delivery from Brett Hutton that reared up and moved away, Malan lofted Hutton for six over square-leg before the same man trapped him lbw trying another big hit, leaving Yorkshire 104-6.
The seventh wicket fell just before lunch, George Hill bowled by one from Abbas that kept nastily low.
Abbas struck twice in two balls soon after the break, an advancing Dom Bess edging to fourth slip and Jordan Thompson to second, but Matty Revis and Ben Coad combined in a useful last-wicket stand of 35, Revis cracking a couple of handsome cover drives off Pennington and Coad dishing out some treatment to Abbas.
But the Pakistani had the final say when Revis chopped on an attempted pull, finishing with figures of 6-45.
Leading by 69, Nottinghamshire had stretched that to 142 when they lost the first wicket of their second innings, Haseeb Hameed caught behind off a good one from Thompson.
Freddie McCann was adjudged caught behind off Coad, but Ben Slater went to his second half-century of the match from 68 balls – as later did Joe Clarke from 55 deliveries.
Slater and Clarke added 70 for the third wicket before Slater nicked off to Revis for 78, leaving Nottinghamshire 173-3.
Clarke ended on 73 not out from 92 balls with 10 fours, Jack Haynes – dropped twice – with him on 13.