Yorkshire v Somerset: Brutal Buttler serves up a treat as Brooks adds to Yorkshire woe

NOT the greatest weekend for Yorkshire.
Andrew GaleAndrew Gale
Andrew Gale

First, confirmation that pace bowler Jack Brooks has broken his left thumb, an injury set to keep him out for around six weeks.

Then, defeat by 131 runs to Somerset, who hammered 338-5, the second-highest total at Headingley in one-day cricket, before Yorkshire were dismissed for 207 as they crashed to their seventh-heaviest one-day defeat in terms of runs.

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Brooks, injured on the final day of the County Championship match against the same opponents 24 hours earlier, when he stopped a fierce drive from Jos Buttler off his own bowling, could miss up to five Championship and six YB40 games.

It is a blow considering his recent form, although his presence here might have made little difference as Buttler inflicted further pain on the Yorkshire dressing room.

The England one-day wicketkeeper savaged 89 from 51 balls with 10 fours and four sixes in a remarkable exhibition of power and improvisation.

Although it was not the highest score of the innings after Yorkshire sent Somerset into bat on a sun-kissed day (that was James Hildreth’s 96 from 84-balls), or even the fastest (Buttler’s strike-rate was narrowly below that of Peter Trego, who bludgeoned 58 from 33 deliveries), it was the outstanding contribution of the match.

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Some of the 22-year-old’s shots defied description; in fact, they were more like tennis and hockey shots as he deflected the ball hither and thither when he was not biffing it clean out of the ground.

When he eventually perished in the penultimate over, swatting Ryan Sidebottom to Will Rhodes at deep mid-wicket, Buttler had carried Somerset beyond the previous highest one-day total against Yorkshire at Headingley, the 314-4 amassed by Northamptonshire in a 50-over match in 2007.

The only bigger total against Yorkshire in 40-over cricket was the 375-4 made by Surrey at Scarborough in 1994, and the only higher score at Headingley in a one-day game was the 345-5 struck by Yorkshire in a 60-over contest against Notts in 1996.

Inevitably, the bowling figures made for painful reading: Moin Ashraf 8-0-80-1, Sidebottom 8-0-77-2, and so on.

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On reflection, it was a good game for the stricken Brooks to miss, with the Somerset innings containing the small matter of 31 fours and 10 sixes.

The visitors were given a flying start by Trego and Marcus Trescothick, who added 96 for the first wicket inside 10 overs.

Trego hit three leg-side sixes off Patterson and one off Sidebottom en route to a 26-ball half-century as Somerset scored 80 in the first eight overs of powerplay.

In the end, it took an outrageous slice of fortune to break the stand, Trego driving firmly back at Sidebottom, the bowler, who inadvertently diverted the ball onto the stumps with Trescothick stranded.

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Another half-hour or so of Trego and the carnage would have been worse, but Ashraf yorked him with the total on 99 in the 11th over.

When Sidebottom had Arul Suppiah caught at slip to leave Somerset 114-3, Yorkshire appeared to have a foothold back in the game.

But Alviro Petersen and Hildreth ensured the excellent platform did not go to waste, adding 67 in 13 overs before Petersen was well caught by wicketkeeper Andrew Hodd standing up to Rhodes’s medium pace.

Hildreth went to his half-century from 60 balls with only two fours and was the rock around which the innings was built.

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Buttler – brutal in comparison – progressed to the same landmark from 38 deliveries with a straight drive off Ashraf that almost decapitated Hildreth at the non-striker’s end, the pair adding 129 in 14 overs.

Faced with so formidable a task, it was no great surprise when Yorkshire’s innings was soon in strife.

Rich Pyrah – promoted to open – skied Trego straight up in the air and was caught in the third over, and Andrew Gale was bowled by former Yorkshire player Steve Kirby in over number six.

Kirby turned villain soon after when he put down one of the easier caught-and-bowled chances you could possibly see.

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Gary Ballance got a leading edge and Kirby, moving to his right, failed to clutch the slow-moving ball.

Yorkshire fell to 64-3 when Phil Jaques was caught behind off Alfonso Thomas, who later returned to shatter a fourth-wicket stand of 70 in 11 overs between Ballance and Adam Lyth.

Lyth skied the pace bowler to deep mid-off before Adil Rashid departed in the same over, caught and bowled inches from the turf.

Kirby won an lbw decision against Hodd to leave Yorkshire 167-6, which became 179-7 when Thomas claimed his fourth victim when Ballance edged behind.

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It was another fine innings by the talented left-hander, who scored 60 from 57 balls with seven fours and a six.

Sidebottom was run out, Rhodes caught at mid-wicket and Patterson held at deep mid-wicket as Yorkshire made it two YB40 defeats out of two.