Dom Bess spins his way to career-best one-day figures in fine Yorkshire CCC win

Two of their three games in the One-Day Cup had been totally washed out, the other lost in frustrating fashion by the narrowest of margins under the DLS method.

A shift in the weather brought a shift in fortunes as Yorkshire beat Essex by five wickets.

They bowled out the hosts for 221 in just 35.4 overs, then chased the target with 25 balls left, James Wharton and Shan Masood both scoring 54 in a game that completed the group’s halfway stage.

Essex’s innings was a curious affair.

It started off like a house on fire - they were 103-0 after just 9.5 overs as they peppered the boundaries - literally, in fact - as Michael Pepper struck 10 fours and three sixes before falling to the final ball of the 10th over.

Armed with that sort of foundation, palpably menacing, the hosts would have eyed a massive total.

Instead, they were pegged back strongly, first by Matty Revis and then by Dom Bess, who both captured career-best one-day figures of 4-54 and 5-37 respectively.

Essex lost their last seven wickets for 46 runs, the final four to Bess, for whom this was a welcome boost after a season in which he has twice gone on loan, to Warwickshire and Somerset.

Operating from the Hayes Close end, at a venue where he played a County Championship match for Warwickshire just a few weeks ago, Bess found just enough turn to complement his flight and control, thereby helping to preserve Yorkshire’s hopes of reaching the One-Day Cup knockout stages.

Before a crowd of 2,893, with a fair few having made the trip down from Yorkshire, the hosts were given their fast start by Pepper, a powerful 25-year-old right-hander who has played for the Northern Superchargers in the Hundred, and, to a lesser degree, by Robin Das.

While the latter proceeded to a run-a-ball 36, before Revis removed him with a sharp return catch, Pepper “a-salt-ed” the bowling - if one might be permitted to assault the Queen’s English in that way - in a destructive innings that knocked Yorkshire off stride.

Pepper set the tone with a brace of boundaries in the opening over, bowled by Dom Leech, before achieving the not inconsiderable feat of twice lifting Ben Coad for six. The Yorkshire pace bowler, typically tough to get away, was lofted straight towards the River End and then over cover, Pepper taking 22 off Coad’s fourth over en route to a 30-ball fifty.

Yorkshire, after losing the toss, must have felt a little bit like rabbits in headlights, occasionally not helping their cause by sending down wides, but they came back well and one always felt that Pepper’s assault could not last.

Sure enough, his eyes lit up once too often when he skied high to cover to give Bess his first victim of the day.

Enter Revis, who took the next four wickets as Essex stumbled to 181-5, albeit still at a rate of nearly eight runs an over.

Tom Westley came down the track, failed to get anywhere near the pitch of the ball and played something of a nothing shot as he edged to the keeper; Das drove back the aforementioned return catch; Luc Benkenstein skied a pull to mid-on, and Simon Harmer chipped to mid-wicket.

After Jack Shutt trapped Charlie Allison trying to sweep, Bess finished things off with a key contribution.

Beau Webster was caught behind playing back; Jamal Richards patted back a return; William Buttleman was bowled by a delivery that sneaked past the outside edge, and Aron Nijjar was castled for a duck.

Unbelievably, given their start, and unforgivably by any standards, Essex failed to use 14.2 of their allotted overs.

In reply, the visitors were given a handsome start of their own, Fin Bean and Harry Duke combining in an opening stand of 80. Blending aggression and improvisation to telling effect, they gave the hosts the runaround before Bean was first to fall in the 17th over, bowled playing back to the off-spin of Webster.

It was another spinner, the left-armer Nijjar, who accounted for Duke, bowled trying to lap-sweep, the first of three wickets for nine runs as Yorkshire slipped to 112-4.

George Hill skied Nijjar to mid-wicket and Will Fraine was caught and bowled by off-spinner Harmer, falling to his left, leaving the hosts with some work to do.

Masood used all his skill and experience, steadily chipping away at the target, and Wharton again showed what a fine prospect he is, the 22-year-old lofting a pair of straight sixes.

They added 68 for the fifth wicket in 69 balls, Masood given out caught down the leg-side off Westley before Wharton and Revis saw their side home.