Yorkshire slip out of title contention after being caught out by Tim Bresnan – Chris Waters

IF there was a single moment when it could now be said that Yorkshire’s County Championship title hopes ended for another year it was when Tim Bresnan caught Dawid Malan off the final ball of the second day’s play in the match against Warwickshire at Emerald Headingley on Monday.
KEY MAN: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan celebrates the wicket of Yorkshire's Dom Bess at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty ImagesKEY MAN: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan celebrates the wicket of Yorkshire's Dom Bess at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty Images
KEY MAN: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan celebrates the wicket of Yorkshire's Dom Bess at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty Images

It was a terrific catch by the former Yorkshire all-rounder, low to his right and one-handed, after Liam Norwell had found Malan’s outside edge.

It left Yorkshire 50-3 and broke a partnership between Malan and Gary Ballance that had seemed vital if the hosts were to chase down a target of 224.

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Sure enough, Yorkshire collapsed to 117 all-out, their batting once again showing a soft underbelly during a season in which they have struggled for consistency in that department.

HOLD ON: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan, right, celebrates catching out Yorkshire's Jordan Thompson at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty ImagesHOLD ON: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan, right, celebrates catching out Yorkshire's Jordan Thompson at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty Images
HOLD ON: Warwickshire's Tim Bresnan, right, celebrates catching out Yorkshire's Jordan Thompson at Headingley last week. Picture: George Wood/Getty Images

Bresnan’s catch was one of six that he captured during the innings – all of them at first slip. The 36-year-old thus became only the third Warwickshire player to achieve the feat in first-class cricket after Rikki Clarke, who took seven against Lancashire at Liverpool in 2011, and Mike Smith, who held six against Leicestershire at Hinckley in 1962.

Clarke’s tour de force also equalled the world record for the most catches by an outfielder in a first-class innings. Micky Stewart, father of Alec, also took seven against Northamptonshire at Northampton in 1957, as did Tony Brown, for Gloucestershire against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge in 1966.

Beyond that triumvirate, Bresnan is one of only 23 fielders in the game’s history to have taken six catches in a first-class innings, one of whom, the great England batsman Wally Hammond, did so twice.

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Hammond also holds the record for the most catches by an outfielder in a first-class match, taking 10 for Gloucestershire against Surrey at Cheltenham in 1928, a fixture in which he also scored a century in each innings and captured the wicket of Jack Hobbs, as you do.

Yorkshire’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.comYorkshire’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Yorkshire’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore. Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com

Prior to Bresnan, the most recent case of a fielder taking six catches in a first-class innings was achieved by the current Yorkshire batsman Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who was busy whacking a hundred for the second team at Scarborough on Monday against his former club Worcestershire while Bresnan was busy equalling his mark.

Kohler-Cadmore, who scored 136 in that game at North Marine Road, where he shared in an opening stand of 270 with Will Fraine, who hit 122, took six catches against Kent at Canterbury in 2019 – two of them off Bresnan.

In so doing, Kohler-Cadmore – who held five of his catches at first slip and the other at deep mid-on – equalled the Yorkshire record set by Ellis Robinson against Leicestershire at Bradford in 1938.

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Robinson, an off-spin bowler who took 735 first-class wickets for the county between 1934 and 1949, usually fielded at first slip and was as good as anyone in the county game.

Famously, before a packed crowd at Headingley, Robinson took a brilliant one-handed catch that involved a leap, a dive and ended with a double somersault.

As he rose to his feet, grinning from ear to ear and holding the ball aloft to acknowledge the crowd’s applause, Arthur Mitchell, his famously dour team-mate standing alongside him at second slip, barked: “Gerrup. Tha’s makkin’ an exhibition o’thissen.”

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