Relief for Yorkshire CCC as they finally achieve T20 Blast Off
BOY, they needed that.
After three defeats in their first three games (and only one win and seven defeats in their 10 competitive matches this season), Yorkshire got off the mark in the T20 Blast, beating Leicestershire by 106 runs.
Thus they averted their worst start to a T20 campaign, having equalled the three successive defeats with which they began the 2016 and 2023 tournaments.
Yorkshire recovered to reach the semi-final in 2016, one of only three times that they have got to Finals Day, and they will hope that this result provides similar impetus, one that left them with confidence renewed.
It was one that owed much to Dawid Malan, their captain and best batsman, who led the way with 88 as they scored an imposing 213-7.
Malan made his runs from 48 balls with eight fours and five sixes - passing 10,000 T20 career runs in the process - and shared 132 for the second wicket in 69 deliveries with Will Luxton, who hit 62 from 34 balls with three fours and four sixes, his maiden T20 fifty.
Leicestershire, who had won three of their first four to sit third in the North Group, were never in the chase, bowled out for 107 inside 17 overs.
Leg-spinner Jafer Chohan took 4-27 as Yorkshire achieved their second-biggest T20 win by a runs margin, one surpassed only by their defeat of Northamptonshire by 124 runs at Headingley seven years ago.
"It was good to get a win on the board,” said Malan. “It’s been a tough few games, so to get that is a great feeling. It gives us a bit of momentum. Hopefully now we can continue that.”
After rain delayed the start by half an hour, watery sunshine greeted the teams on a day that could not quite make its mind up temperature-wise - to be or not to be with a coat, as Bill Shakespeare might have said.
Yorkshire were unchanged after Friday’s defeat in Birmingham, and after Leicestershire chose to insert on a good, if perhaps slightly two-paced pitch, the opening partnership of Adam Lyth and Malan was restored after the experiment to bat Lyth at No 3.
Lyth hit fours off the first three balls of the second over, bowled by Logan van Beek, and Malan’s first boundary was momentous in every sense, a glorious lofted cover drive for six off Matt Salisbury that carried the left-hander to and beyond the 10,000 milestone.
Thus the Yorkshire captain became only the fifth England player to achieve the feat after Alex Hales, Jos Buttler, James Vince and Jason Roy, a proud milestone.
Lyth was caught behind in the fourth over off Roman Walker, but Luxton - who had opened with Malan in Birmingham - added splendid impetus, helping Malan to take the total to 65-1 at the end of the six-over powerplay.
That had risen to 101-1 at the halfway stage as both players struck some magnificent leg-side blows, Malan going to his 69th fifty in T20 from 30 balls and Luxton to his first from 27 just deliveries.
Their partnership had become a second-wicket record for Yorkshire against Leicestershire when Luxton was caught at long-on from the final ball of the 15th over by Shan Masood, his captain here last season, off Liam Trevaskis, the left-arm spinner.
The wicket of Luxton was followed by that, six balls later of Malan, who lofted Walker somewhat tamely to cover. It had been a magnificent innings, one coloured towards the end by successive leg-side sixes off Louis Kimber into the East Stand, and it was his third-highest score for Yorkshire in T20.
Yorkshire have lost wickets in clumps in this competition so far and this match - despite its favourable outcome for them - was no exception.
Luxton’s was the first of six wickets for 38 runs as, after Malan fell, Matty Revis was caught around the corner trying to ramp van Beek; Harry Duke taken at point off the same bowler; James Wharton caught on the mid-wicket boundary off Salisbury, and Matt Milnes caught at the third attempt at long-on by Masood off van Beek, the most successful bowler with 3-47.
Dom Bess finished matters with a flourish, striking an unbeaten 18 from six balls to ensure that matters did not totally tail away.
Leicestershire’s reply was rather like this match report – instantly forgettable.
Yorkshire were “on it” from the start as Will O’Rourke had Rishi Patel caught at mid-wicket by Lyth before Matt Milnes had Kimber skying to Bess running in from mid-off.
Masood tried to strike Lyth’s first delivery over the Howard Stand and paid for the policy, Bess again the catcher, and then Bess turned wicket-taker when Sol Budinger skied back a return.
Lewis Hill sliced Chohan to Dan Moriarty at short fine-leg, and the leg-spinner made it two in two when Ben Cox was strangled down the leg-side (not physically, one hastens to add).
Bess claimed his 50th T20 wicket for Yorkshire when he trapped Trevaskis sweeping, and Moriarty got in on the act when Tom Scriven lobbed one to Luxton at long-off.
Chohan claimed his third when van Beek advanced with fatal consequences, Duke doing the rest behind the stumps, and his fourth arrived next ball when Salisbury missed a googly to end proceedings as Yorkshire, at last, bared their teeth.