Yorkshire CCC on wrong end of history-equalling innings in Blast hammering

Aneurin Donald, the 28-year-old opening batsman, led the way with a brutal 85 from 30 balls with seven sixes and eight fours, in the process equalling the fastest fifty in Blast history - Marcus Trescothick’s 13-ball effort for Somerset against Hampshire at Taunton in 2010.

Donald would have had the record all to himself but could only scamper a leg-bye from the 12th ball he received, having battered 10 of the previous 11 either to or beyond the boundary.

When he finally fell to the third ball of the 10th over, caught by James Wharton running in from deep mid-wicket off leg-spinner Jafer Chohan, the total was 125-2 and what had started as a tough-looking chase had turned into a cakewalk.

Donald had one life, Will Sutherland putting down an extremely difficult opportunity, diving full-length to his left at mid-off, from the bowling of O’Rourke when the score was 82 in the final over of the powerplay, which the home side ended on 90-0.

Otherwise, it was ball-striking of the most blistering order as fours and sixes rained down on this tree-lined venue, with a sell-out crowd of 5,000 revelling in the strokeplay that they witnessed.

Donald added 115 for the first wicket with Caleb Jewell, almost a silent partner with 31 from 26 balls with four fours and a six, the pair achieving a Derbyshire record opening partnership against Yorkshire in T20 matches.

This was a truly bruising defeat from a Yorkshire perspective, their seventh in 10 group games to all but end their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals.

Their score by no means seemed a poor one on a fairly slow pitch, although no one managed a really substantial innings to put the game beyond Derbyshire’s range.

Seven of the eight Yorkshire batsmen who took strike reached double figures, and the only one who did not, Dom Bess, only faced three balls.

But Thompson’s unbeaten 37 from just 11 deliveries, with four sixes and two fours, was the highest score, with the rest producing only cameos.

On a grey and windswept day, with a few heavy showers around in the area before play started, but thankfully nothing to disrupt the contest itself, Yorkshire were unchanged following their victory over Worcestershire at Headingley on Friday.

Dawid Malan, the visiting skipper, struck a couple of handsome early sixes, lofting Alex Thomson, the off-spinner, over cover and Pat Brown, the pace bowler, beyond long-off, with his opening partner Jonny Bairstow getting in on the act when he, too, hoisted Brown over long-off for six.

Yorkshire lost their first wicket with the total on 48 the final over of the powerplay when Malan, making room to try to hit Mohammad Ghazanfar, the 19-year-old Afghan off-spinner, through the offside in the direction of the scoreboard, saw his middle stump flattened.

It was 51-1 at the end of the powerplay, and Yorkshire lost their second wicket on 61 in the seventh over when Bairstow was caught behind trying to run a ball from Chappell down through the third man area which seemed to rear up a bit more than he thought.

The visitors were 88-2 at halfway but the theme of batsmen getting in and getting out continued, with the next three wickets all falling to catches at long-on by Harry Came.

First, Will Luxton holed out off Samit Patel, the left-arm spinner, then Wharton perished at the hands of Chappell before Matthew Revis holed out off Brown, leaving Yorkshire 149-5 in the 17th over.

That became 171-6 from the first ball of the penultimate over when Sutherland fell to the best catch of the day, Ross Whiteley somehow taking the ball above his head on the deep cover boundary to give Brown his second wicket.

Thompson’s late salvo gave Yorkshire impetus but he was thrillingly upstaged by the devastating Donald.

Twenty runs came from the first over of the chase, 25 from the second and 15 from the third, leaving Yorkshire’s hopes in disarray.

Sutherland finally broke the first-wicket stand when Jewell top-edged a pull to O’Rourke at short fine-leg, and after Donald was dispatched, Samit Patel slapped O’Rourke to Bess at mid-on to leave the hosts 141-3, needing 60 more runs from 51 balls.

Wayne Madsen (38 from 25 balls with seven fours) and Whiteley (29 from 17 with two fours and two sixes) completed formalities, sharing an unbroken 60 from 34 deliveries to send the majority of the crowd home happy.

For Yorkshire, it was an eight successive defeat in T20 matches at the Queen’s Park ground, a place where they last prevailed in 2014.