Matt Milnes the hero for Yorkshire CCC as they end dismal T20 campaign on a high
IT’s ok, you can come out now from behind the sofa. Yorkshire’s T20 campaign is finally over.
At least it ended on a winning note, with a two-wicket triumph at Leicester on Friday. It was a fifth victory to go with nine defeats as the club finished second-bottom of the North Group, one of their worst-ever showings in the 20-over format.
A tenth defeat had looked almost certain as this game came down to its final act. It was a game that both sides had done their level best to lose - Leicestershire after collapsing to 185 all-out having been 161-4 at the end of the 15th over; Yorkshire after staggering to a pitiful 28-4 in response at the end of the powerplay.
But a record fifth-wicket stand for Yorkshire in T20 of 112 between Abdullah Shafique, who scored 64 from 38 balls with four fours and four sixes, and Matty Revis, who hit 52 from 32 balls with four fours and three sixes, his maiden fifty in the format, kept Yorkshire alive and Leicestershire alert.
It was a stand, for the record, that beat the unbroken 103 between Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid against Trinidad & Tobago at the 2012 Champions League at Supersport Park, Centurion, the only year in which Yorkshire have looked a real force in the 20-over format.
But when Shafique was bowled swinging across the line at leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, then Revis caught at short-third off an outside edge as he stepped away to the offside and Josh Hull, the left-arm pace bowler, followed him cleverly, the pendulum swung back to the hosts with Yorkshire still 35 short of victory with 17 balls and four wickets left.
Will Sutherland and Jordan Thompson flickered briefly but when Thompson was out to a superb relay catch on the mid-wicket boundary from the third delivery of the final over, bowled by Hull, the visitors were still 11 shy of their target.
Jafer Chohan, the new man, scampered a bye first up, leaving Milnes on strike with 10 needed from the final two balls. The first he pulled for six over mid-wicket, the second he ramped for another six towards the pavilion, having stepped away to the offside to give himself room.
Milnes peeled away in jubilation, pursued by an equally joyous Chohan, as Hull and his team-mates stayed down on their haunches, unable to comprehend how the match had slipped away.
Perhaps the only consolation was that victory would not have been enough to take Leicestershire into the quarter-finals after Bears pipped them to that mark by winning at Derbyshire. Instead, they finished seventh, six points above Yorkshire.
On a warm and initially sunny evening, one that ended with Yorkshire confirming that Ruturaj Gaikwad, the India batsman, will not now be joining them as an overseas player for personal reasons, leaving the club to look elsewhere for cover for the rest of the County Championship season and the One-Day Cup, Milnes had first made a key intervention with the ball as Leicestershire stumbled in that final quarter of their innings.
He took three wickets in his third over, the 17th, Logan van Beek miscuing a pull to give a return catch, Ian Holland slapping tamely to cover, and Tom Scriven brilliantly held by Sutherland, sprinting to his left from long-on.
The closing stages were a mess from Leicestershire’s perspective, the earlier platform provided by a pair of 43s from Ahmed and Ben Cox horribly wasted in the face of good bowling, good fielding and soft batting.
Sutherland was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3-20 and counting the former Yorkshire captain Shan Masood among his victims – albeit to one of the worst shots of the night, a dreadful attempted ramp, followed by the death rattle.
Dan Moriarty and Thompson chipped in with two wickets, the latter finishing his Yorkshire T20 career with 99 wickets and 1,022 runs from 87 appearances.
Thus Thompson, who is joining Warwickshire, narrowly missed out on becoming only the second man to the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets for the club in T20 after Tim Bresnan, who made the same move south.
Yorkshire, who were without Jonny Bairstow, who is set to become a father again, and Dom Bess (hip) were stymied by that poor batting powerplay, which left Shafique and Revis with a huge amount to do.
Both played well in challenging circumstances: Shafique is clearly a class act, while Revis is in splendid form at present, a player on the rise.
They were not quite able to see the job through but they did set the stage for that man Milnes.
He did not disappoint, even if Yorkshire’s 20-over campaign, in the round, most definitely did.