Shutt leads stroll in the park for Yorkshire

The pitch, straw-coloured and parched, looked in need of a gallon of water - or perhaps something stronger.

Spectators, bronzed and bare-chested, gravitated towards the sunniest sections of the ground, like moths to a flame.

Others, their collars turned up to protect themselves from the rays, headed with equal determination for the shadiest regions.

Outside the ground, in nearby Bute Park, sunbathers and strollers lined the banks of the Taff.

It was as lovely a day as Cardiff has known, a picture-book of summer, a haven of tranquility.

It was certainly no day to be a bowler or a fielder, with little escape from the enervating sun.

Better to be cooking beneath the lid of a batting helmet; it never feels quite so sapping when one is scoring the runs as opposed to conceding them.Young Harry Duke knew this feeling well, the opener top-scoring with 87 as Yorkshire hit 257-9 after choosing to bat, Glamorgan responding with 234 to lose by 23 runs.

Jonny Tattersall, the captain, who has now led his men to three wins in four at the halfway stage of the group campaign, chipped in with the second-highest score of 55, Will Fraine the other main contributor with 40.

Yorkshire’s bowling was collectively impressive, led by Jack Shutt, the 25-year-old off-spinner, who took one-day best figures of 4-46 on his seventh appearance.

There were two wickets each for Matthew Revis and Matthew Waite, while Ben Coad’s 1-29 gave him combined figures in his last three one-day outings of 30-2-74-3.

Kiran Carlson, the Glamorgan captain, top-scored with 64 but Yorkshire struck at key times to stymie the chase. But for a last-wicket stand of 42 between James Weighell and Jamie McIlroy, the margin of victory would have been much greater. For Yorkshire, this was the equivalent of a stroll in Bute Park.

At the home of the defending champions, with Glamorgan having beaten Durham in last year’s final, Yorkshire’s score nevertheless felt more competitive than commanding.

The pitch, although placid, like the proverbial old lady who lives down the road, did not have much pace which made boundary striking more difficult than the hot weather suggested; there were just 17 in Yorkshire’s innings and only 13 in Glamorgan’s.

Fraine hit four successive fours off Weighell in the game’s fifth over, a burst of scoring that was thus atypical, the tall right-hander clipping his Middlesbrough-born opponent through mid-wicket, lofting him over mid-on and twice driving him through the covers. When Fraine is in full flow, there are not many better players to watch in the country, his run-a-ball innings curtailed when he picked out long-on to conclude an opening stand with Duke of 58.

Duke is a different sort of batsman, more of a touch-player and manipulator of the ball in the mould of a Tattersall. He is just 20 years of age but already has two List A hundreds to his name, one of them in the opening match in this year’s competition against Northamptonshire in York.

Duke played a mature hand at the ground where he made his first-class debut last year, anchoring the innings like a seasoned pro, occasionally opening his shoulders but mostly working the ball around.

After Will Luxton and George Hill fell cheaply, the former stumped after overbalancing, the latter trapped lbw on the back foot by a delivery that kept low, Duke helped his captain to add 90 for the fourth wicket in 95 deliveries, a stand that was the rock on which Yorkshire’s score was built.

Duke deserved another hundred but fell in the interests of the cause when he tried to clear the boundary at deep mid-wicket only to pick out the fielder who was stationed there instead. He faced 117 balls and hit five fours and a six, the latter a pull off pace man Joe Cooke.

When Duke departed, Yorkshire were 202-4 in the 41st over and perhaps hoping for a score of at least 275, but the big finish never materialised as 60 came off the last 10 overs for the loss of six wickets, betraying the challenges posed by the pitch. Tattersall and Waite holed out to deep mid-wicket, Revis and Tom Loten were run-out, and Dom Bess lbw aiming to leg.

Coad and Waite struck early to leave Glamorgan 13-2. Sam Northeast, the former Yorkshire batsman, and Carlson were just starting to rebuild when Northeast clipped Revis to mid-wicket, before Shutt’s spree began when he bowled Billy Root.

Shutt struck again to trap Cooke leg-before, Carlson giving Tattersall another catch at mid-wicket off Revis, and then Dan Douthwaite a catch to deep mid-wicket off Waite.

Shutt had Andrew Salter stumped off a wide and claimed his fourth when Tom Cullen slog-swept him to deep mid-wicket, Bess finishing it when Weighell found long-on.