Yorkshire CCC 2021 awards: Who was the best player, what was the best match, what was the champagne moment

Player of the season: Harry Brook

The 22-year-old looked an England player-in-waiting during a season in which he aggregated 1,283 runs in the County Championship and T20 Blast. Brook was also the leading run-scorer for Northern Superchargers in The Hundred with 189.

It was not so much the volume of Brook’s runs that caught the eye, however, as the manner of their accumulation, with the right-hander showing style and technique in red-ball to go with power and inventiveness in white-ball. Also took some brilliant slip catches.

Match of the season: v Northamptonshire at Headingley

Yorkshire memorably won a low-scoring Championship game by one run, captain Steve Patterson taking the winning wicket when he had Wayne Parnell caught behind.

It was only the third time that Yorkshire had won a first-class match by one run, the other instances coming against Middlesex at Bradford in 1976 and against Loughborough UCCE at Headingley in 2007.

“The really good sides never give in,” said Patterson afterwards, following a display that was brimming with character and resilience.

Best innings: Dawid Malan

The England batsman made only six county appearances due to a combination of international cricket and The Hundred, including just two in the County Championship.

But in the first of those two Championship fixtures, against Sussex at Headingley, Malan produced a masterful innings of 199 that was the club’s highest individual score of the summer and underpinned comfortably its highest total too (558), laying the foundation for an innings win.

Best bowling: Dom Bess

The off-spinner had a steady season with bat and ball, chipping in with important contributions and benefiting from playing more frequently.

Bess’s best figures - and indeed Yorkshire’s best figures of the campaign - were 7-43 against Northamptonshire at Wantage Road.

With qualification for the Championship’s top-flight on the line, Bess ripped through the first innings batting and followed up with two more scalps in the second innings to help Yorkshire to the necessary win.

Champagne moment: Lockie Ferguson

It is one thing to take a hat-trick.

It is quite another to take a hat-trick against your fiercest rivals in front of a sell-out crowd on your home ground.

But that is what Lockie Ferguson, the New Zealand fast bowler, did on his final appearance for Yorkshire against Lancashire at Headingley in the T20 Blast.

Ferguson removed Luke Wells, Luke Wood and Tom Hartley with the final three balls of the match to close out a nine-run triumph.