Yorkshire CCC boosts promotion push with third successive win

Victory closed the gap on Sussex to just nine points, with another key game to follow against fellow promotion-chasers Middlesex at Headingley, starting on Thursday.

After weeks and months of wading through treacle, Yorkshire are moving towards the sunlit uplands of success once again, with three wins on the spin and four games to go.

Two of those wins have come at Scarborough, a place good for the soul and quite often for the home team.

This was actually Yorkshire’s third successive Championship win there, including the one against Derbyshire last September, and given that so many enjoy going to ‘Scarbados’, Yorkshire might as well just shift the entire operation from Kirkstall Lane to North Marine Road, although that would be to invite accusations of wishful thinking. Guilty, m’Lud.

The grand old ground looked lovely in the sunshine when play got going on another breezy day.

The situation was this: Yorkshire needed 75 more runs and Sussex eight more wickets - a near formality, in other words, for Tattersall and his team.

Adam Lyth and Dan Moriarty were the men at the crease, Moriarty having been sent in as nightwatchman the previous evening, following the departures of Fin Bean and Jordan Thompson, the latter pushed up the order.

The scoreboards at the venue showed 28-2 and, quite strikingly, around 1,600 spectators had taken advantage of free admission with so little play expected - well, a bargain’s a bargain in Yorkshire, tha knows.

Lyth knows the ground as well as anyone, having played his club cricket there, and the Whitby wonder - still going strong as he nears his 37th birthday - eased into his task with successive boundaries off Jaydev Unadkat, the Indian left-armer, clipping him off his pads and then cutting him firmly towards the Popular Bank.

Sussex turned to Carson, the 23-year-old from Northern Ireland, who had taken five first-innings wickets in an effort not only to break through but also to make up a poor over-rate; the visitors had faced losing three points going into day four.

Carson, though, perhaps battling the strong wind, really struggled at first from the Peasholm Park end, simply increasing the total and the averages of the batsmen.

Lyth pulled him powerfully for six over mid-wicket, then Moriarty made light work of a rank long hop which disappeared for four in the same direction, a delivery so bad that one half imagined it had come via the postal service.

After Lyth uppercut Ollie Robinson for six towards the pavilion, Carson’s problems continued when Lyth pulled him for another boundary, Moriarty then rocking back to crack him to the cover rope, a shot that raised the 50 partnership.

Next ball, Moriarty made a misjudgement, trapped on the crease to a ball that pinned him in front, and Carson had an undeserved wicket, the nightwatchman having done his job well with 17 from 35 balls, including four boundaries.

Further efforts to better the over-rate followed when Sussex summoned up the left-arm spin of James Coles (first-class average 55).

Coles was tidier than Carson, the senior man, finding a much fuller length from the Trafalgar Square end.

But Carson it was who struck again - a soft one - when Lyth was strangled down the leg-side and caught at the second attempt by wicketkeeper John Simpson.

Lyth practically had to drag himself off the field, the chance of a nice red-inker gone, having scored 40 from 60 balls with four fours and two sixes.

Yorkshire messed things up against Sussex in May, when Lyth’s dismissal for 73 in the match at Hove triggered the loss of the last four wickets for three runs as the home side burgled a 21-run triumph, inspired by some outstanding bowling from Robinson.

There was never any danger of history repeating itself, although Carson did claim a further two scalps before battle was done, James Wharton lbw sweeping and Jonny Bairstow caught at deep mid-wicket for a second-ball duck, Bairstow departing with a wry smile after trying to win the contest with a six when Yorkshire were two runs from home.

Tattersall tried something similar when Carson spilled a fierce return catch before the next ball brought the winning moment.

Will Luxton finished unbeaten on 13, Carson with career-best match figures of 9-120, the whole thing done and dusted in time for Sunday lunch.