Yorkshire make it three wins from three to achieve best-ever Blast start
ONLY once before had Yorkshire won their opening two games in the T20 competition, beating Derbyshire then Notts in 2015.
Then, as now, following victories this summer against the same two sides but the other way round, they travelled to Durham for match No 3.
They lost it by six runs - and on the same day too, May 29.
There the similarities ended, though, as Yorkshire’s class of 2026 secured a 58-run triumph – and their best-ever start to a Blast campaign.
After scoring 151-9 having been sent in, James Wharton making 64 from 41 balls and Jonny Bairstow 43 from 37, they dismissed their opponents for 93 in 16.2 overs, the second-lowest total against them in the format behind Glamorgan’s 90 at Cardiff in the 2016 quarter-final.
In this meeting between the top two in the North Group, Durham opted to bowl on a fine sunny evening.
On a sluggish pitch never easy for batting, Yorkshire were 30-2 at the end of the powerplay, emphasising the challenge. Adam Lyth fell in the second over, skying Matthew Potts to mid-wicket, and Will Luxton in the third when he tried to slog-sweep left-arm spinner Callum Parkinson and was bowled off his pad.
Only when Bairstow lofted successive off-side sixes off leg-spinner Nathan Sowter did the shackles loosen, lifting Yorkshire to 61-2 at halfway.
Bairstow pulled Kasey Aldridge to deep mid-wicket to end a stand of 69 with Wharton in 56 balls, and Yorkshire fell to 89-4 when Moeen Ali drove Aldridge to Alex Lees at cover. Wharton responded by lofting Sowter for a straight six and hammering his next ball through long-on for four to reach an excellent fifty from 37 deliveries.
Three successive fours off Ben Raine followed but Wharton went to Raine’s next ball, bowled trying to reverse-hit the seamer, before debutant Faheem Ashraf hoisted Aldridge to Will Rhodes at long-off.
Hasan Ali sliced Raine to backward-point from the first ball of the penultimate over, then Matty Revis – batting at No 9 – hit 16 off the next five deliveries.
Potts struck with the final two balls of the innings, having Revis caught at deep backward-square before bowling Dom Bess.
Durham lost four wickets in reaching 41 at the end of the powerplay.
Graham Clark slapped the fifth ball of the innings from Hasan to Revis at mid-wicket; Lees lofted Faheem’s sixth ball to Hasan at mid-on; Ollie Robinson ran himself out going for a suicidal single to Moeen at mid-off, and Hasan bowled a driving Colin Ackermann.
David Bedingham kept the scoreboard moving with 41 from 29 only to fall to a brilliant running catch on the straight boundary by Revis off Moeen, a pivotal moment. When Rhodes lofted Bess to A.J. Tye at long-off, Durham were in a devilish predicament at 66-6.
Revis took another fine catch running in from long-on to dismiss Raine off Moeen, then a driving Aldridge was bowled by Bess.
Sowter was lbw to Jafer Chohan, then Potts run-out going for a silly second, which summed up Durham’s night.