Jonny Bairstow and Will Luxton star as Yorkshire CCC defeat their arch rivals
A BIG crowd, a television audience, a hot summer’s night and a match against the old enemy. The sort of ingredients, in other words, that were likely to bring out the best in Jonny Bairstow, who did not disappoint in a fabulous display.
On a night when sixes soared and records fell, Bairstow hit 116 from 54 balls with 10 sixes and eight fours, laying the platform for a total of 236-6 after Yorkshire chose to bat on a used and dry pitch.
It was his highest score in the format (eclipsing his 114 for Sunrisers against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the 2019 Indian Premier League), his third T20 century for Yorkshire, and the club’s third-highest T20 innings behind Adam Lyth’s 161 against Northamptonshire and David Willey’s 118 against Worcestershire, both at Headingley in 2017.
Yorkshire’s total - their fourth-highest in T20, and their highest in a Roses game - owed only marginally less to Will Luxton, the 22-year-old right-hander who made a career-best 90 not out from 46 balls with seven sixes and five fours.
Bairstow and Luxton’s stand of 167 for the second-wicket from 76 balls was Yorkshire’s highest in T20s, surpassing the 159 between Dawid Malan and James Wharton for the same wicket against Worcestershire at Headingley two years ago.
Faced with an almost impossible chase, Lancashire kept in touch until around halfway, whereupon Jordan Thompson took the key wickets of Phil Salt and Jos Buttler in successive overs.
Buttler’s 55 from 33 balls was the highest score, and it was fitting that he perished to a catch by Bairstow off a top-edged pull, Lancashire closing on 217-7 as Yorkshire won by 19 runs, their first T20 triumph at Old Trafford for 11 years.
"It’s great fun playing here,” commented Bairstow, named player-of-the-match. “Any time you get to come and there’s a really good crowd, it gets the juices flowing.
“I hit them shockingly in the nets just before the game and I said to Woody and Sads (coaches Matthew Wood and John Sadler) that something’s going to have to change pretty quickly.
"When you get a couple out the middle and you get going, it’s a nice rhythm to be in, and thankfully tonight was my night.”
Of Luxton, Bairstow said: “Look, he’s an extremely good young talent. The way in which he strikes the ball, the connection he gets on it is definitely different.
"There’s an ease and a flow to him, and when he connects with the ball it goes a long way, and I think that’s a gift, you can’t work on that too much. It’s just about empowering him to keep doing what he’s doing.”
The previous two T20 Roses games at Old Trafford had been washed out, but there was no chance of that happening as Manchester basked in glorious weather.
Yorkshire enjoyed a fine powerplay, reaching 72-1 at the end of it, 51 of the runs to Bairstow, who went to his fifty from 24 balls with a quartet of both sixes and fours.
Two of the sixes came off James Anderson, his former England team-mate, playing his first Roses T20 for 20 long years. First, Bairstow lofted him over fine leg before dispatching him over long-on with sumptuous timing.
It was not Malan’s night this time, the Yorkshire captain the man out in the third over when he edged behind off Luke Wood. In came Luxton, who nonchalantly pulled his second ball off Wood for six and soon had those watching purring about his quality.
Whereas Bairstow’s innings was chanceless, Luxton did benefit from four lives in a department of the game that probably cost Lancashire the match.
Salt put him down badly at long-on off Jack Blatherwick on 45; Chris Green dropped him in his follow through on 60 (a very tough chance, diving to his right); Wood spilled a sitter off Anderson at long-on when Luxton had 64; and Wood was the culprit again when Luxton, on 88, skied Blatherwick to mid-off.
The young man’s strokeplay, it should be stressed, was a joy to behold, and it was an innings that confirmed his obvious potential.
Bairstow, who reached his hundred from 49 balls, finally fell to the first delivery of the 16th over, caught on the mid-wicket boundary by Salt off Green.
Yorkshire lost four wickets in a madcap last over - Green having debutant Abdullah Shafique and Wharton held at long-off, catching Will Sutherland off his own bowling, before Thompson was run out.
Once Salt and Buttler had been dismissed, the hosts’ chase petered out, the final score given a misleading gloss by the fact that Sutherland conceded 25 from the last over. Jafer Chohan and Thompson were the pick of the attack.