Matty Revis hat-trick in vain as the rain and Kent thwart Yorkshire CCC at Scarborough

Forgive the flippancy, born of frustration, but will this flipping weather ever improve?

Yorkshire have lost some 30 per cent of playing time this season, and there were more spits and spots and showers at Scarborough, where 33 overs were lost in the club’s opening game in the One-Day Cup.

Thankfully, it did not prevent a positive result, although it was not the one that Yorkshire desired. Kent won by two runs under the Duckworth Lewis Stern method to get their trophy defence off to a winning start, Yorkshire’s total standing at 117-4 from 17 overs in pursuit of a thrice-revised target of 181 from 24 overs when play was called off.

Sent into bat beneath glowering skies, Kent scored 282-9, hammering 198 off the last 25 overs. Joey Evison hit 136 and Ben Compton 103, the fifth-wicket pair sharing a record stand for any wicket against Yorkshire in one-day cricket of 219 from 32.4 overs, eclipsing the 216 by Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott for Warwickshire’s third wicket at Edgbaston in 2005.

The stand was finally broken when Evison skied a catch to deep mid-wicket off Dom Leech which was well judged by Matty Revis, who then took a hat-trick with the final three balls of the penultimate over amid the usual blur of free-swinging bats.

Revis, 21, was not even born when a Yorkshire player last took a one-day hat-trick for the club, Craig White performing the feat against the same opponents at Headingley in 2000. There were three prior occurrences: Paul Jarvis against Derbyshire at Derby in 1982, and Darren Gough against Ireland at Headingley in 1997 and against Lancashire at Headingley in 1998.

On a day when the adverse weather no doubt affected the gate (1,876), Yorkshire made a positive start. Proceedings were 15 balls old when Ben Coad, operating from the Trafalgar Square end, drew an indeterminate push forward from Marcus O’Riordan, Will Fraine doing the rest at first slip.

O’Riordan’s departure brought a familiar face to the crease, the Kent captain Jack Leaning, and a respectful round of applause for the former Yorkshire player. Leaning’s stay was brief, Coad having him caught behind in the ninth over after he had produced two memorable boundaries - George Hill “forehand-smashed” away in the direction of the West Stand off a bouncer that was also a no-ball on height, followed by a lovely cover-drive off Hill’s next ball.

Coad was excellent first up in an unbroken spell of 10-3-16-3, which included just one boundary – Compton glancing the penultimate ball down through fine-leg. Fifty-one of Coad’s 60 deliveries were dot-balls, a remarkable effort.

When Coad took his cap, having also had Harry Finch caught behind off a ball that spat and nibbled, Kent were 60-4. It might have been 64-5 but Leech had Evison spilled on nought by Dom Bess diving to his right at mid-wicket – a costly miss.

Evison made better connection with his next leg-side whip, sending a ball from Hill for the game’s first six out towards the West Stand. Hill had taken the third Kent wicket when Alex Blake gave him the charge only to sky high towards the seagulls, wicketkeeper Harry Duke judging the catch.

At halfway, Kent were 84-4 from 25 overs, a run-rate almost as retro as the shirts that Yorkshire wore to mark Yorkshire day – a remake of the club’s 1993 Axa Equity & Law Sunday League top.

But Evison, in particular, carried the fight, the 21-year-old clubbing 14 fours and seven sixes, reaching his hundred from 84 balls by depositing Ben Mike over backward square-leg.

Revis began his hat-trick with the wicket of James Bazley, caught at deep square-leg by James Wharton, the same pair accounting for Grant Stewart. When Hamidullah Qadri made room to try to hit through the offside, missed and was bowled, the ball just brushing the bails, Revis accepted the applause of the crowd and his team-mates, a nice moment for him before Compton was run out off the final delivery of the innings, having faced 137 balls and hit 10 fours.

There was a controversial run-out in Yorkshire’s reply. After Fin Bean was caught at point, Shan Masood pushed a single to mid-on, where Evison swooped to throw down the stumps. To the naked eye, Masood looked in and Neil Mallender, the umpire, appeared potentially to be looking the other way. That would not be unusual, of course, when it comes to matters involving Yorkshire cricket in recent times.

Hill hit 35 from 18 before edging behind, and Duke 31 from 37 before skying to mid-off, while the dangerous Fraine was there at the end, but the weather, invariably, had the last word.