Willey blasts Vikings into the T20 Blast finals day

Yorkshire brushed aside Glamorgan to make it four wins from four for the North Group in the NatWest T20 Blast quarter-finals.

A record Cardiff crowd of over 10,000 had to come with the hope of seeing Glamorgan make their first T20 finals day since 2004. Instead they watched as the hosts were bowled out for just 90 en route to a crushing 90-run defeat, with Vikings leg-spinner Adil Rashid taking 4-26.

England all-rounder David Willey was the star of the night with the bat, blasting 79 from 38 balls to help Yorkshire reach 180-8 off their 20 overs. They looked set for a lot more while Willey was at the crease, but it ended up being more than enough as Glamorgan crumbled in front of their home support.

It could have been a dream start for Glamorgan but Adam Lyth was dropped on nought by Jacques Rudolph off Shaun Tait.

While Lyth did not last long – caught by former team-mate Rudolph for eight – his opening partner Willey was hitting the ball to all parts on his way to a season-best T20 score.

He smashed six sixes and seven fours as he took the Glamorgan attack apart, with Yorkshire racing along at more than 10 an over. Willey departed in the 12th over when he was bowled by Colin Ingram’s leg-spin to leave the visitors 134-3.

Willey was the first of four Ingram wickets as he picked up career-best figures of 4-32.

Yorkshire’s lack of batting, with Travis Head having been called up by Australia and their England players taking part in the Test against Pakistan, began to tell as they lost six wickets for 35 runs.

The Glamorgan innings began with David Lloyd edging a ball from Tim Bresnan onto his stumps for a platinum duck, and it did not really improve from there. They reached the end of their batting powerplay with the score at 34 for five, with danger-man Ingram gone for 16 off the bowling of Matthew Waite.

Glamorgan’s chances had all but gone when Ingram departed, but what followed was shambolic.

They finished with exactly half what Yorkshire had put on the board – Rudolph (26), Timm van der Gugten (13) and Michael Hogan (12) were the only other home players to reach double figures – as they were bowled out for their lowest ever T20 total.

Yorkshire captain Alex Lees said he was very pleased with Vikings’ turnaround in T20 form in the past few weeks.

He said: “Halfway through the group stage Edgbaston] looked a long way away. Everyone had written us off but we obviously got a couple of wins under our belts and that sort of snowballed and never stopped rolling and the lads have taken the momentum the white ball into the red ball and vice versa.”