Yorkshire CCC fail to shine in opening One-Day Cup defeat to Hampshire
STREETS slick with rain. Skies the colour of battleship grey. What on earth had happened to summer in Scarborough?
After weeks of warm, dry, almost monotonously perfect weather, those arriving for the start of Yorkshire’s One-Day Cup campaign could have been forgiven a touch of self‑pity. As someone once said, “I don’t know what’s going off out there. It were cracking the flags when I set off from Skipton.”
Still, the weather relented enough to permit a prompt start at North Marine Road and – mercifully – no interruption in the game against Hampshire, conditions improving throughout the day. A decent crowd turned out too: 3,455, if not quite the 15,242 who saw Garry Sobers play here for Nottinghamshire in 1969. A few days before that game they put a man on the moon; at times on Tuesday it felt cold enough to see it.
This was a meeting between two teams in search of a tonic: Yorkshire after losing their Vitality Blast quarter-final to Somerset in freakish circumstances (the freak being Craig Overton’s innings); Hampshire after losing the final itself to Northamptonshire on Saturday. It was Hampshire who got the sought-after boost, scoring 320-8 and then bowling out Yorkshire for 270 to win by 50 runs.
For those of a certain age – people who still associate TikTok, for example, with the sound of a clock – this ground will forever be linked with the surname Lehmann. Darren Lehmann’s 191 here against Nottinghamshire in 2001 remains the highest score for Yorkshire in one-day cricket, and there were pangs of nostalgia when his son, Jake, took to the crease and produced something substantial of his own.
Remarkably, the 34-year-old Hampshire left-hander has never made a one-day hundred, but he got three-quarters of the way there on this occasion, scoring 75 from 84 balls with eight fours – one of them perhaps the shot of the match, a glorious on-drive off Ben Coad to the Peasholm Park end. Lehmann clearly did not like umpire David Millns’s decision to give him out caught behind off Ben Cliff as he tried to run the ball down to third man, shaking his head as he left the field. It ended a ground-record fourth-wicket stand of 147 with Tom Prest that underpinned Hampshire’s total after they were sent into bat.
There was better luck in the century stakes for Prest, who struck 109, his third one-day hundred, an innings spanning 94 balls and containing four sixes and nine fours. The 23-year-old right-hander was particularly strong through the off-side, reaching his century from 89 deliveries and raising his head to the skies: still grey and gloomy, unlike his mood.
Another with reason to be cheerful was Isaac Bepey, a 25-year-old left-arm seamer who took 3-64 on his Yorkshire debut. It was a promising performance by a man who played age-group cricket for Kent before being spotted by Yorkshire following his displays for Leeds/Bradford University. Bepey had Fletcha Middleton caught behind from a ball that slanted across him, then Ashutosh Sharma caught on the leg-side boundary via a magnificent Fin Bean/Sam Whiteman relay catch, and Ben Brown held at third man.
A blot on Yorkshire’s display was their catching, with three opportunities going down. Adam Lyth spilled Nick Gubbins at second slip off George Hill from the fifth ball of the match, diving to his left, although Gubbins did not linger – bowled by Coad, who had a tough day on his first appearance since April after injury. Lehmann was dropped on five at point by Will Luxton off Cliff, then Prest was grassed on 73 at mid-off by Coad off Cliff. Hill finally accounted for Prest, caught at long-on, Hill outstanding in a first spell of six overs for as many runs.
What Hampshire would have given for similar accuracy.
Yorkshire got off to a flying start against an inexperienced attack, reaching 71-0 from the first seven overs, Luxton striking a quartet of boundaries in seamer Dominic Kelly’s first over. Luxton raced to his half-century from 36 balls with 10 fours.
But Yorkshire were pegged back by the loss of two wickets in six balls with the total on 84: Lyth lbw reverse-sweeping left-arm spinner Andrew Neal, then Will Bennison run out without facing when a drive from Luxton was deflected on to the stumps by Sharma. Luxton looked well set but helped Oliver Williams into the hands of long-leg, having made a fine 64 from 59 balls with 12 fours.
Sam Whiteman and Hill added 68 in 70 balls, Whiteman then skying Sharma straight up to mid-wicket. Yorkshire fell to 223-5 in the 37th when Bean was run out following a mix-up with Hill; and then to 233-6 in the 39th when Hill sliced Neal to short third-man, ending a good innings of 61 from 68 balls with seven fours and a six.
The match was now slipping away from the hosts. Sharma had Harry Duke caught on the boundary, then Dom Bess taken at cover. Cliff picked out long-on and the game ended when Bepey was run-out.